


Son of Life

by sodium_amytal



Category: Rush (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Developing Relationship, Drama, Dystopia, Fluff, Humor, M/M, dark themes, there are lots more characters btw but i only see the point in tagging the main three u feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-10 10:04:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5581570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodium_amytal/pseuds/sodium_amytal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1955, Crown City seceded from the Old Nation and became the first metropolis in the sky. Twenty years later, Geddy, a thief under contract to a crime syndicate, meets a mysterious and quirky young man named Alex, who happens to be the son of the city’s founder. Alex is a blast of color in the dreary landscape of Geddy’s life, and it’s not long before they fall for each other.</p><p>But the root of Alex’s eccentricity might be more complicated than Geddy ever imagined, and the closer he gets to Alex, the closer he comes to unraveling the tragic riddle of Alex’s life. Soon, dark secrets come to light about Crown City’s founder that change Alex’s world forever. Geddy’s keeping secrets of his own, including his tragic, bloodstained past, and his grudging duty to the Wreckers, a group of underground insurgents who have owned his allegiance for the last six years. When the Wreckers set their sights on Alex, Geddy knows the only way to save him is a daring escape from Crown City to the reviled Old Nation below. As anarchy erupts around him, Geddy must attempt the impossible and discover if he has the strength to survive the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes hello i am here to spread the word of the otp
> 
> disclaimer: i haven't actually read the clockwork angels novel, so while this borrows a few things from it, any plot similarities are entirely coincidental. i pretty much mashed up all of rush's concept stuff and applied things where i saw fit (mostly names of locations). 
> 
> this is my first fic for this fandom so pls be gentle

As the scream of the police drone siren pierces the air, Geddy seriously reconsiders his line of work. He wasn't supposed to steal the wine, but it was there and so tantalizingly within reach he couldn't help himself. It's the shopkeeper's fault, really; who puts wine bottles on a display table where greedy hands can swipe them up when the seller turns his back?

Which is why Geddy's sprinting through the cobbled streets of Chronos Square and clutching a bottle of Bordeaux like his life depends on it. He weaves through smatters of pedestrians and bystanders who quickly veer out of the way when the police drone soars over their heads. He swings around the gargantuan monolith of an angel in the center of the square and nearly topples over a hot dog cart. "Sorry, sorry!" he shouts over the vendor's colorful swearing.

He's got to shut the drone up, otherwise the siren will draw more of them, and Geddy will be well and truly fucked. He swerves underneath the awnings hanging over the storefronts that line the streets. That should screw with the drone's motion sensors enough to buy him some time to think of a better plan than 'run like hell.'

Destroy the drone, idiot. How's that for a plan? The overhangs and awnings provide adequate camouflage, and most of the bystanders regard him with little more than passing interest. Geddy sets the bottle at his feet to pry a piece of plywood off an abandoned apple crate. The board dislodges with a snap, its nails protruding from one end. He fastens the bottle into a pouch on his utility belt and darts north toward the bridge, board in hand.

The drone closes in on him, its wail unbearably loud now. Geddy spins, wielding the board like a baseball bat, and the wood smashes into the drone. The siren warbles in malfunction, and the force of Geddy's swing knocks the machine over the bridge. "Oh, that ball is outta here!" he marvels as the drone falls out of sight and into the abyss of sky and clouds below. "Geddy Lee's two-thousandth career home run! The crowd goes wild!"

There's no time to celebrate. Two officers appear and give chase, drawn by the siren. Their olive-colored uniforms conceal them amongst the buildings. Geddy drops his 'weapon' and keeps moving. His adrenaline is heady, out of control, and he's never been great at harnessing its power. His legs are tingly, and he's breathing too fast. He needs to hide and let this blow over.

The city rushes by in a dizzy whirl of vendor booths, penny arcades, creameries, flags, and floating buildings. His heart pounds in his ears amidst the sound of his frantic footsteps against the cobblestone streets. The cityscape begins a slow shift into more greenery, as trees decorate either side of the walkway in lieu of buildings. Lakeside Park lies to the left, which consists of more park than lake, because a flying city isn't the best place for a large body of water.

"Stop, by the order of the Crown City Police Authority!" one of the officers shouts from behind him.

Yeah, no.

Life Tower looms in the distance, towering over the city through the clouds. Geddy darts into the park and rushes through the thicket of trees. He veers right before running into a stone wall. On the other side of this wall is the courtyard which leads to the clock tower itself. He needs to get over that wall.

Geddy's heard the rumors, of course, about Old Man Lifeson who allegedly lives in the tower. Lifeson was the founder of Crown City, the brilliant physicist who discovered the quantum levitation that makes the city float. Legend has it that he lost his mind and now lives in the clock tower, and if someone is crazy enough to cut through the courtyard, Old Man Lifeson gets them.

What he supposedly does with his 'victims' is up to the imagination. But no one really vanishes in Crown City, as there's nowhere else to go. Geddy remembers a whispered story about how Lifeson's own son was allegedly his first 'victim,' because the kid suddenly stopped coming to school six years ago and hasn't been seen since.

But Geddy's pretty sure the rumors are bullshit. Nobody lives in a clock tower. And if there really is someone in there, they're probably just lonely and eccentric.

Geddy grabs onto a sturdy tree branch and hoists himself up. The bottom of his boots find footing on another branch, then another. He manages to climb his way up, just enough to leap over the wall. He doesn't look back to see if he's still being followed. It's a safe assumption that the officers are still in pursuit.

Geddy dashes through the courtyard and closes in on the tower. He pushes for more speed, his legs feeling stiff and heavy. Sweat pastes his shirt to his skin. He spends a clumsy handful of seconds pulling open the doors until he can slip through the gap. The clock tower doors seem to weigh about eight-thousand pounds, and the rough wood scrapes his fingers like sandpaper.

He's thrilled to find there's a bar on the inside to block entry. He slams down the bar across the doors and takes a moment to catch his breath. His lungs feel like they're exploding. Christ, he needs a drink. He unfastens the wine bottle from its satchel and freezes.

Through the raucous rhythm of his heart pounding in his ears, he hears the distant jingle of chains. The clock faces are too high to give off much light, so Geddy only sees vague hints of shapes in the darkness. When he turns around, he's startled to see what look like five human figures closing in on him. He screams a totally manly sound of terror and flings the bottle at his attackers before cowering against the door with his eyes squeezed shut.

He doesn't hear the smash of glass. He does, however, hear the rattle of chains again, and a soft male voice: "Oh, you brought wine? How romantic!"

Geddy opens his eyes and peers into the darkness. There's a man hanging there amidst the circle of human figures that Geddy's just now realizing are statues. The man is upside down and most definitely not dead, because he's tipping the wine bottle to read the label. "Ooh, Bordeaux! Well, I'm flattered, but I usually don't put out until the third date. Who are you, by the way?"

The man twists around a metal chain, righting himself and sliding to the ground. Geddy's eyes adjust to the darkness, and, oh hell, this guy's adorable. His smooth, blonde hair hangs past his shoulders. His smile is flirtatious, and there's a roundness to his features that's almost cherubic. He certainly doesn't look worthy of the name Old Man Lifeson.

"You're not old," Geddy hears himself say.

The stranger's laugh is instant and lovely. "What?"

Geddy decides he doesn't want this guy's first impression of him to be that of a spectacular dumbass. "Who are you?"

"Pretty sure I asked you first."

Geddy casts a nervous glance over his shoulder at the door. Did the police see him come in here? Or did he manage to shake them off?

Equally troubling is the collection of statues that look an awful lot like the angels scattered all throughout the districts. Is this guy a hoarder? A fellow thief? What the hell has Geddy stumbled into?

"I have a lot of questions."

"So start simple." The stranger offers his hand, and they shake, because that's what you do. "I'm Alex, by the way."

"Geddy." This is weird. This is so goddamn weird, and he probably should have given a fake name in case this guy plans on following him home and making a suit out of his skin.

Alex laughs a light, airy sound. "Your name is Geddy? Dude, that's gotta be a fake name. Or else your parents were drunk when they named you."

Even six years later, Geddy still feels the profound wave of loss and regret that accompanies any mention of his parents. Alex seems to sense this is emotionally sensitive territory, because his brow furrows and his lips form a tiny pout. "I'm sorry, it's a nice name. Just, um, don't pay too much attention to me. I say lots of stupid shit. My people skills are rusty."

Geddy figured as much. "Why are you here?"

"Why are any of us here?" Alex says, affecting an introspective look.

Oh Christ. "No, I mean... why are you _here_?" He gestures vaguely in a way that's supposed to suggest the clock tower.

"Hey, I don't go to your house and ask you why you live there. Probably because I don't know where you live—"

"You live here?" It doesn't sound any less ridiculous hearing that a second time.

"Yeah, duh. Try to keep up." Alex smiles and carries the wine bottle into the darkness. Geddy follows blindly until a lamp is switched on. There's a small work area with a table and a bench. Looking around, Geddy notices a spiral staircase in the center of the tower, winding its way to the top like a DNA helix, surrounded by gears of various sizes and long chains hanging from the ceiling.

Alex's thoughtful expression shifts into a toothy grin that emphasizes the roundness of his features. "But enough about me! What're _you_ doing here? Are you even real?" He reaches out and curves his free hand around the side of Geddy's face, as though he has serious concerns Geddy might be an illusion.

"I'm, um, very real." And so is the boner Geddy's sporting. Damn. When was the last time he was so viscerally attracted to someone?

"Who were you running from?"Alex watches him curiously, like he's genuinely interested in this stranger who's basically broken into his home.

"Um, someone tried to steal my wine."

"Well, I'm glad they didn't. We should celebrate!" Alex sets the wine on the table and pulls out the cork. He takes a drink straight from the bottle. Geddy opens his mouth to protest, but he could definitely use a drink himself. He's had a tough day. "Hey, this is some pretty good stuff. Where'd you get it?"

Geddy sidesteps that question entirely, just accepts the bottle and takes a long swallow. "Um, what's with the statues?"

"Oh, the angels? I make them!" Alex says with pride.

The angels are painted gold with large clocks in their middles, each one intricately and lovingly crafted. They're smaller than the ones on display in the districts, and some are unfinished, torsos bursting from ghost-white blocks of marble. The clockwork angels serve as the guardians of the city, effigies of hope, prosperity, and integrity.

"You're an artist."

"Sure, you can call me that if you want." Alex takes the bottle back for another drink. "I've been called worse."

"Worse? What's wrong with being an artist?"

"Well, there's nothing wrong with it, but, let's be honest, Crown City isn't really the best place to live if you're artistically inclined. But paintings aren't gonna keep the city floating, I guess."

"So, wait, I thought the founder of Crown City lived here. But you're way too young to be him."

"Well, he did live here. I'm his son."

Geddy blinks, stunned. "You are? I thought—" He shakes his head and aborts that train of thought. He probably shouldn't mention the rumors, even if Alex has heard them.

"You thought what?"

"Nothing. What's it like living in a clock tower anyway?"

"Well, you always know what time it is," Alex says with a goofy grin, and Geddy feels his face go hot.

"The ticking doesn't bother you?"

"No, it helps me sleep." Alex's expression lights up with exuberance as an idea strikes him. "Oh, hey, you wanna see the city from the top of the tower? Not a lot of people get to see that. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Unless you're me, and then you can see it whenever and it's not a big deal anymore." He swings around the table with excitable energy, moving toward the staircase. Geddy decides to follow him.

It's a long way to the top of the tower, so Alex keeps the conversation going. "Are you from around here?"

Geddy isn't sure why he lies. It just comes out of his mouth. "I'm from Xanadu." Maybe, on some level, he wants to impress this weirdo shut-in with the cute smile. So why not pretend he hails from the wealthiest district in the city? It's not like he's never been there before.

"You're kinda a long way from home, huh?"

"I was, uh, in Chronos Square, y'know, for the wine."

"They don't sell wine in Xanadu?"

"Well, yeah, but I thought I'd mingle amongst the commoners." Geddy forces out a chuckle.

"Hey, watch who you're callin' a commoner," Alex says with a hint of teasing in his voice as he ascends the stairs.

"Obviously I didn't mean you."

"Remember what I said about not paying too much attention to me?"

"Who said that?" Geddy says, glancing around the tower as though he's seen a ghost.

Alex laughs, unrestrained, and a feeling circles Geddy, something approaching fondness for this strange little goofball. "How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Twenty-two."

"Hey, we're the same age! Neat!"

There's no way this baby-faced kid is twenty-two years old, but it's not like Geddy's going to ask for proof. It's the least ridiculous thing he's heard in the last five minutes, so he's rolling with it.

Geddy estimates the staircase is about ten miles high, so by the time they reach the top he feels like he's dying. The top level of the clock tower is what appears to be a makeshift apartment. It's split into two floors, the first floor serving as a bedroom, while the second hosts the kitchen. The décor is haphazard to the point where there's not really any style at all. None of the furniture matches, the rugs and linens are all different colors, and there's photographs mixed with paintings on the walls.

A skinny walkway leads to the rear clock face as a lookout point. Alex guides him through and peers out the glass at the magnificent view of the floating city. "What do you think? Pretty cool, huh?"

Geddy hasn't seen Crown City from this perspective before, because his irrational fear of heights prevents him from admiring the view on the Sky-Line. Up here, at the highest point in the city, he can see a handful of districts interconnected by bridges and railways, hovering tranquilly amidst the clouds. "Yeah, it's... it's beautiful."

He glances at Alex in reverent awe. This guy's father is responsible for a good percent of what they're looking at right now. He wonders how Alex must feel about that, if he's proud or if he worries he'll never achieve anything half as remarkable.

"Do you... do you bring girls or guys or whoever you're into up here?" That was the first thing on Geddy's mind when he saw the bed, so this needs to be addressed. "'Cause I feel like the mood would be lost after climbing about eight thousand stairs."

Alex chuckles and gives him a curious look. Maybe he's wondering what kind of brain damage Geddy has. "You're the first person who's visited in a very long time, so that's... not really something I think about too often."

"You're awfully charming for a tower hermit."

Alex's expression is a confusing mix of amused and thoughtful and sad, and how does a person even get that many emotions on their face? "Aww, really?"

"Don't you ever get lonely?"

"Nah, I'm not lonely. I have me."

"That's... the saddest thing I've ever heard."

"And the angels."

"I spoke too soon. You—you talk to the angels? Do they talk... _back_ to you?" Geddy really hopes not.

"They're not big on conversation. But they're really good listeners, and they don't interrupt."

If it were anyone else telling Geddy about talking to inanimate objects, he'd get right the fuck out of here. But Alex doesn't seem dangerous, just really weird. Geddy's weird, too, in his own way. He ought to give the guy a chance. Clearly, he's lonely and desperate for a connection with another human being.

"I think they're good company."

"And you've got absolutely zero baseline for comparison."

"Well, you're the one talking to the crazy guy in the clock tower, so..." Alex drags out the last word and shrugs.

"I don't think you're crazy." A little—okay, a lot—eccentric, maybe.

"Are you trying to think of a more polite word?"

"No, I don't think there's anything wrong with you. That was kind of my point."

Alex smiles, a gentle curve of mouth that Geddy wants to feel beneath his own. "Well, thanks, I guess. You wanna stay for dinner?"

"You have food here?"

"It's really cute how primitive you think I am," Alex says with no trace of condescension, like he actually means it. Geddy's momentarily stunned while Alex climbs the ladder leading to the kitchen. "Yes, of course I have food, dingus. Why would I have a stove if I couldn't use it?"

"So you actually go outside?"

"Yeah. I mean, not as much as I probably should, but I get distracted a lot by my work."

"The angels?"

"And the painting."

"You paint, too?"

Alex gestures to the oddly detailed paintings adorning the walls. "Yeah, these are all mine."

Geddy moves closer to properly admire the artwork. The glistening, manic gobs of oil on the canvas snag his eyeballs and hold fast. The paintings are certainly impressive, with attention to detail and an eye for color. Alex seems fond of landscapes, and Geddy wonders if that means anything. He notices some common motifs: light sources with cartoon stink lines emanating from them, distorted perspective, faceless figures. "They're... really good."

"Thanks!" Alex grins, his cheeks flushing pink. Geddy has finally met a person who's so attractive it actually makes him angry. Alex probably can't even say hello to someone without them fawning over how pretty he is. "Maybe I'll paint something for you sometime!"

"Oh, no, you don't have to go to any trouble for me." Geddy follows him up the ladder.

Alex snorts a laugh while he's digging through the kitchen cabinets. "What else am I gonna do with my time? It's no trouble, Geddy. Don't worry about it."

It's probably not a good sign that Geddy likes the way his name sounds in Alex's mouth. He moves closer, intent on offering his assistance. "Can I help?"

Alex gently pushes him aside. "No, go away. Sit down. You'll just get in my way." It's kind of amazing how someone can say that and not sound like an asshole. Alex's hand lingers on Geddy's shoulder, and both of them notice it at the same time. Alex chuckles nervously and lets his hand fall away. "Sorry. People skills, remember?"

Geddy tucks his hair behind his ears and slinks away. He sits at the table, watching Alex move about the kitchen with effortless grace. "So, um, how long have you been here... alone?"

"About a year. After my dad died... Well, the angels keep me company."

That explains so much of Alex's weirdness. "Sorry about your dad. What was he like?"

Alex seems taken aback by the question, his posture growing oddly stiff. But he softens, slicing vegetables on the countertop. "Um, he was... quiet and stern. He never really laughed at jokes, just sort of nodded his understanding. He was brilliant, and he spent a lot of time working. But he was always there for me, in his own way, I guess."

Alex starts chopping something else, though Geddy can't see what it is from here. "My dad really was a tormented genius. I know that sounds really dramatic but, in my experience, when people are so transcedentally gifted it comes at a price."

Geddy thinks about Alex's own gifts, how he stays confined in this tower creating masterpieces.

"Why'd you ask?"

"Sometimes you wanna talk about the good things, y'know? It's not fair to condense everything he meant to you into just the loss."

Alex glances over his shoulder at Geddy for a moment before turning back to the countertop. "You lost somebody, too?"

Geddy's first instinct is to deflect the question, but it's a dick move to make Alex talk about his father without shedding some light on his own personal tragedy. "Yeah. My parents."

"I'm so sorry... Losing someone is never easy." There's a moment of silence, then: "Okay, we need to talk about something less depressing. Which is cuter: puppies or kittens?"

And so it goes. Alex supplies a flurry of light-hearted conversation while he prepares dinner, and Geddy offers up answers, curious about Alex's own. Alex, it turns out, is a pretty damn impressive cook, which Geddy learns when the meal's ready and they sit down to dinner. It doesn't look like much, just a typical pita wrap, but it's infused with something godly, because it rocks Geddy's world.

"Wow," he mumbles around a mouthful. "This is... really good." Words have failed him.

Alex smiles shyly. Since he rarely leaves the tower, he's probably not awash in compliments about his cooking skills. "You think so? Thank you! I haven't cooked for someone else in a long time. I thought I'd lost my touch."

"Well, take it from me, this is pretty fantastic. Have you ever thought about opening a restaurant?"

"Me?" His eyes widen. "No, no, I couldn't. I mean, no, I never really thought about it before. You think it's a good idea?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"It sounds like a lot of pressure. I don't know if I could..." Alex stares at the food on his plate for a moment before pushing a hand through his hair. "I guess I could think about it."

"Yeah, no pressure. I just... You're really good at stuff. And it's a shame to keep your talents locked away in here, I guess is what I mean. I think people would really appreciate what you have to offer."

Alex gives him a curious look, and Geddy knows this is the first time anyone's ever said anything like that to him. "Thanks."

Dinner passes by in a comfortable wave of conversation, and it's already dark by the time they're finished eating and talking. Geddy knows he ought to leave now. As much as he'd like to stay, he's already gotten a free meal out of Alex. It would be selfish to take anything more.

"I guess I should head home," he says, pushing away from the table. "You want me to help you with the dishes?"

Alex huffs laughter. "No, you're a guest. I'm not gonna make you do any of that." Then he's up and at Geddy's side, leading him down the spiraling staircase. "Thank you for coming by," Alex says once they reach the bottom. "I haven't had a visitor in a long time."

"No need to thank me," Geddy says, half-heartedly. It's not like he came here out of the goodness of his heart. Which reminds him: "Oh, hey, what about my wine?"

Alex tosses a glance to the work bench where the bottle's sitting. "I think I'm gonna keep it."

Geddy wants to protest, but what's he going to say? He didn't buy it, so it never really belonged to him anyway. "What if I want it?"

"Then you can have a glass the next time you come over." Alex grins. Geddy's made a friend here, and he can't let Alex know he's a thief, that he's stolen more than just glances and easy conversation, so he's not going to argue the point.

"Alright, well, it was nice meeting you, Alex."

"You'll come back, right?" Alex looks away, like he's embarrassed. "I mean, if you're not too busy."

"Of course. You'll be here?"

Alex laughs and slaps a hand on Geddy's shoulder. It takes him a second or two to yank his hand away from the contact, as though he's been burned. "Sorry. Okay, um, I'll see you later."

Geddy smiles at him one last time before opening the tower doors and stepping outside.

* * *

"It's not like I'm doing anything wrong, right?" Alex wonders after Geddy's gone. He's pacing the floor, anxiety bubbling nervously under his skin. He'd been so exhilarated to meet someone new that he'd momentarily forgotten Dad's rules. But Dad isn't here anymore, and it seems wrong to uphold a bargain that's already been violated by the other party.

Alex's conversation partner, Revolio Clockberg Jr., stares back with unseeing eyes.

"What's so wrong about having a friend?" Alex posits. "I haven't had one in six years. I'm not s'posed to be alone for the rest of my life, am I? Wouldn't Dad want me to be happy?"

The angel does not answer, but Alex hadn't really expected him to.

"Okay, so I'm breaking the rules. What's the big deal? I've already broken them by going out by myself. I do a lot of things he probably wouldn't approve of, which..." Alex scratches the back of his head. "I feel bad about it, I do, but does he really expect me to stay locked up in here forever? He's not even here! If he wanted to make sure I didn't break the rules, maybe he shouldn't have—" He stops himself before finishing that sentence, because it's too raw, still too new. He shakes his head and blinks the tears out of his eyes.

"Okay, okay. I won't leave to see Geddy. But I'm not gonna turn him away if he comes back. He's nice to me. He's cute, and he makes me laugh. How am I not s'posed to want that?"

Alex could really use an answer here, and the angel's stoic silence reinforces how much Alex needs Geddy's company. Geddy listens and _speaks_ with him. Geddy asks him questions and offers up answers. The angels, good listeners they may be, are only a one-way street of communication. Alex doesn't know how much longer he can bounce his fears and worries off of inanimate objects before he breaks.

"I want this," Alex says softly in the silence of the tower. "I want a friend. I've wanted one for years, and now I finally have one. If Geddy comes back, I'm not gonna worry about what Dad would think. Because he's not here anymore. I can do what I want now."

Alex takes the wine bottle upstairs and lets it coax him to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Geddy wakes up the next morning wondering if his encounter with Alex was just a bizarre dream. Geddy lives in the seedy part of the Cygnus district: more specifically, La Villa Strangiato, a hotel turned brothel. The building isn't as decrepit as one would imagine, but it's no five-star hotel either. He can afford to live someplace that isn't a whorehouse, but it's that damn masochistic streak of his, the need to punish himself for the deaths of his parents. Plus, the rent is dirt-cheap as long as he doesn't bother the other tenants.

His room is rather tidy, all things considering. Most of Geddy's possessions are contraband: childhood relics from the Old Nation like records, comic books, and baseball cards. In a locked drawer in the bureau, a drawer that's currently hanging open, is Geddy's dwindling wine collection. An empty bottle lies on the floor near the bed, its contents consumed last night before Geddy crashed into a dreamless sleep.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, he's off to the library via the Sky-Line. Since there are no privately-owned automobiles in Crown City, the Sky-Line was created as a way to transport passengers around the city. A series of metal rails connect every district, and small trains carry riders to various stops.

Geddy does his best not to look out the windows as the train car moves along the rails. Most of the passengers disembark upon the car's arrival at Chronos Square. Geddy finds the humble library with ease. The building isn't very big, since Crown City's twenty-year history means there isn't a lot of original literature.

Inside, the library resembles a cozy two-story house someone repurposed to store books. The walls are lined with stuffed bookshelves, and chairs and loveseats are laid out across the floor. On the first floor, the librarian's desk sits where the kitchen would be. One of Geddy's only friends mans the desk, working on a crossword puzzle, and Geddy approaches with timidity. "Hi, Neil."

"What's a five-letter word for 'a pain in my ass'?" Neil Peart has long, dark wavy hair and a mustache fit for a carny or a child molester. He pretty much runs the library single-handedly. The job of librarian has mostly belonged to retired folks who can't work in Dionysus, the city's factory district, but Neil has a deep, reverent respect for knowledge and learning.

Geddy smiles half-heartedly. "It's me, isn't it?"

Neil smirks, setting his pen down and pushing away from the desk. He knows why Geddy's here, because it's the only reason Geddy ever comes to the library—aside from bothering Neil. Neil leads him upstairs and into a mostly-empty room that might be considered an office. He unlocks a series of complicated-looking locks and pulls down a ladder leading into the attic. "Ladies first," Neil says, tugging at Geddy's long hair.

Geddy rolls his eyes and ascends the ladder. The attic is filled with contraband: books, files, and magazines from the Old Nation. Crown City law forbids the archival and possession of literature and media from any other country. Neil, of course, sees this decree as a challenge to collect as many smuggled goods as he possibly can. Geddy doesn't know how the guy does it, but apparently he has his sources and refuses to reveal them. Typical.

Neil has a formidable collection of literature, but what Geddy comes here for are the newspapers from the Old Nation, most notably the sports pages. When he was a child, baseball had been his life's passion, and he dreamed of playing on a major league team. But Crown City's hard-on for expansion and scientific progress clipped those wings, and the overall presence of sports in Crown City's culture is relegated to children's pastimes.

But in the Old Nation, sports are alive and well. Athletes are paid ridiculous amounts of money to throw, swing at, or kick a ball, and fans rally around their favorite teams with neo-religious fervor. He wishes that same exuberance and respect was paid here, but it isn't, so all he can do is read about a distant land where it is.

"It's last month's paper," Neil says, almost apologetic. "But it's better than nothing."

"Thanks. I appreciate you sticking your neck out for me like this."

"It's not just for you. They think they can get away with censoring history just by hiding the books? This place is only two decades old. Almost everyone who lives here remembers what it was like in the Old Nation—I mean, fuckin' Canada. They even gave it a name that makes it sound like the place no longer exists."

Geddy knows where Neil's going with this, but the ride is always a good one. "You think they're brainwashing us?"

"All governments do to an extent. They censor what they don't want to you know and paint a different picture."

"So what's the goal, then?"

Neil shrugs. "I guess they wanna foster this 'we're so special and unique' mentality, so they hide the fact that other countries have the Lifeson Particle. By pretending like we're the only ones with this kind of technology, it fuels the idea of expanding the city and making it bigger and better. And don't even get me started on the immigration bullshit."

Six years ago, Ray Danniels, the mayor of Crown City, passed a law enforcing ridiculously authoritarian restrictions on who's allowed into the floating metropolis. Would-be applicants are screened against a strict set of criteria, and, as you can imagine, this opens up an entirely new can of discrimination-based worms. It seems the old adage is true: absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Geddy tucks his hair behind his ears. "So why don't we get The Omega Concern going?" The Omega Concern is the code name they've given their Crown City escape plan, which is currently in the research and development stage.

"It's going. We've just gotta be patient." Neil eases the ladder into the attic. "Enjoy yourself."

* * *

After spending an hour or two in the library, Geddy drops into a tavern within walking distance. It's quite a contrast to the run-down, weathered bars in Cygnus. He finds a table near a window where he can admire the clockwork angel towering over the town square. There's a new element of wonder and beauty to these sculptures now that Geddy knows Alex created them and probably has a name for each one.

The angels are the closest things to religious figures Crown City has. People pray to them and leave offerings at their feet. According to customs, the angels aren't gods, just representations of one. Geddy isn't sure how he feels about that, but it's certainly better than making a god out of a man.

A familiar man slides into the open seat across from Geddy while he's working on his second beer. "Fancy finding you here."

Geddy pauses, bottle halfway to his lips. "How did you?"

John Rutsey lifts his eyebrows and shrugs. "Oh, don't be so obtuse. It's your worst feature."

So Geddy's being followed by the Wreckers, or, at least, by John. Good to know. The Wreckers are an underground insurgency group led by a handful of revolutionaries who reject Crown City's exceptionalism and political ideology. They draw their numbers from the underprivileged and lower-class, and, in Geddy's case, people who hire them for their services. The Wreckers specialize in crime rackets, ranging from theft to more, uh, violent measures. They contract their services to those in need, but it comes at a price: your servitude. Depending on the service requested, the Wreckers will own your "contract" for a period of time in which you do their bidding. Geddy's read about the Mafia, a similar system the Old Nation and its relatives share, though the Mafia's membership is usually dictated by lineage.

"I thought my nose was my worst feature," Geddy says.

John thinks about that for a moment. "Okay, second worst."

 _Dick_. "Well, what do you have for me this time?" The Wreckers have held Geddy's contract for six years. Every job brings him closer to his freedom.

John glances over his shoulder and leans in. "There's a lockbox at the bank that belongs to Danniels. It's in a secret vault on the bottom floor." In addition to serving as the city's mayor, Ray Danniels takes a ten percent tithe of all transactions, so he's probably got money to spare.

"If it's so secret, how do you know about it?" Geddy says and immediately wonders why.

John smirks. "Blueprints. Does it matter? Just get what's inside the box and bring it back to me. We'll shut off the grid at eight, so you won't have to worry about the cameras."

Whatever's inside must be significant enough for Danniels to care about if it's stolen. Maybe it's not about money at all. "This sounds like a pretty important job. Why me?"

"Well, you've got seniority." So that's one of the perks? "And you're pretty good at your job."

Geddy's not going to bother mentioning the wine debacle yesterday, lest he shatter the lovely image John's got of his competency. "That settles it, I guess." He finishes his beer and drops two Silver Eagles on the table. "Where should I meet you?"

John just shakes his head and says, "I'll find you."

Yeah, that's not disconcerting at all.

* * *

Geddy heads into Xanadu at eight o'clock. While there are some people milling about, the bank is closed at this time of night. Downtown Xanadu is alight with neon signs and the glistening, golden fountain in the district square. There is, however, a small subsection of the district near the Sky-Line station that is bathed in darkness. The Wreckers must have cut the power right on time.

There's a clockwork angel outside the bank entrance. Using the darkness as a cloak, Geddy sneaks around back of the building. He loosens one of the windows with the pry bar in his shoulder bag. His footsteps echo through the foyer, and he takes the stairs to the bottom floor. The vault is pitch black and terrifyingly silent. Geddy digs out a flashlight and switches it on, illuminating the room in a harsh spotlight.

Along the walls are the various safe-deposit boxes, with the over-sized vault door on the right. John mentioned a secret vault here somewhere. On the far wall, near the lower right corner is a square patch of concrete that looks slightly out of place. Geddy kneels down and pushes at the rock. He can see the tiny gaps outlining a shape, as though the concrete was carved out and replaced.

He uses the pry bar to wiggle the slab out just enough for his hands to finish the job. Behind the chunk of concrete is a small safe with a combination-lock door. Shit. He was really hoping for a simple key-lock safe, but he came prepared for the worst.

Combination locks function via a spindle and a series of wheels that click into place when the proper number is dialed. For each combination number there is a wheel that's rotated so its notch is on top, and the lock drop falls into each notch. It's not an overly complicated process, but when you don't know the combination or how many numbers the combination consists of, it's a long ordeal of trial and error.

Geddy digs through his bag, pushing aside the comic books he plans on bringing to Alex tonight, and withdraws a stethoscope. He always feels like a world-class doofus while wearing it, but it amplifies the sounds of the lock pins clicking into place. Metal safes reverberate sound and make it easier to hear. He slowly rotates the dial counterclockwise, listening for two clicks near each other—the sound of the drive cam connecting with a wheel. It takes about a minute and a half for him to hear the clicks. 8 _,_ or somewhere around there.

He resets the lock then slowly turns it clockwise, listening for the following pair of clicks on the second wheel. After another minute, he finds the sweet spot someplace around 10.

Reset the lock and repeat. He finds the lock only has three wheels, and the final number is 74, give or take. Now to plug the numbers into the safe. Geddy tries the original combination first, then, when that doesn't work, tries every possible sequence of those numbers—74, 10, 8; 8, 74, 10, and so on. On the sixth variation, the safe door opens, and Geddy actually says, "Thank God," out loud.

Inside the safe is a bulging bag of Silver Eagles. Beside the bag sit five Silver Bars—each bar worth 100 Silver Eagles. Geddy carefully puts the items into his own bag, and upon removing the bag of coins discovers a small stack of books inside the safe. He picks them up and glances at the titles. What shocks Geddy is that he recognizes the books from Neil's contraband collection. So Danniels has his own stash of illegal materials. This must be what the Wreckers wanted: blackmail ammunition. Geddy slips the books into his bag and shuts the safe door.

He's oddly exhausted once he's out in the crisp night air, and though he's tempted to have a drink or a bite to eat in one of the nearby taverns, the smarter decision would be to get the hell out of Xanadu and meet with John on friendlier territory.

He takes the Sky-Line back to Cygnus and gets a drink at the Working Man Tavern. John finds Geddy just as he's rattling the half-melted ice in his glass. "Long night?"

Geddy blinks himself alert. "You could say that."

John doesn't bother sitting. He jerks his head toward the door. "C'mon."

It's probably a good idea to follow him, so Geddy does. John leads him through the derelict streets Geddy calls home, and to a small grocery store at the south end of the shopping plaza. The storefront contains a partition that leads to the basement: the Wreckers' headquarters. A few other Wreckers that Geddy doesn't know by name are there.

John leads Geddy inside and announces, "He pulled it off."

Geddy opens his bag and takes out the Silver Eagles and the Silver Bars, places them on the table in the middle of the room. A smattering of 'ooh's and 'aah's arises from the onlookers. Then Geddy shows them the books he found.

John snatches up one of the volumes. "I'll be damned! He's breaking his own rules!" He looks through the pile of books, fury contorting his face. "So he makes it a crime to have this shit, but he's got his own secret stash?" John snorts an angry breath and looks at Geddy. "Whatever. We can use this. You did good. Lemme count this out and you'll get your cut."

In total, the safe held a thousand Silver Eagles' worth of currency, and Geddy takes his cut from the loose change, because he thinks the bars would be too risky to carry around. The Wreckers will melt them down, or trade with them on the underground market, but Geddy doesn't want to mess with any of that.

John just says, "See you around," when Geddy leaves, and Geddy trusts that he will. John seems to find him whenever he needs to.

It's about ten o'clock when Geddy heads over to Life Tower to see Alex. Sure, it's kind of late, and he doesn't much relish the idea of pestering the guy, but it's not like Alex has to wake up early for work tomorrow. Besides, Alex seems like he'll appreciate the company.

Geddy feels kind of strange knocking on the enormous, ornate tower doors. There isn't a doorbell for him to ring, though, so he doesn't see any other alternative. After a handful of seconds, the doors open. "It's you!" Alex says, like Geddy's just the person he was hoping to see. He has one of those contagious smiles, and Geddy finds himself returning that goofy-ass grin. He can't help it; the guy's adorable.

"Yeah, it's me. I hope I'm not bothering you or anything."

Alex makes a scoffing sound and invites him inside. "Whatever, man, don't worry about it. Actually, I was really hoping you'd come by, 'cause I made a huge pot of pasta that I probably shouldn't eat by myself. You're hungry, right?"

"I can't say no to a good meal."

They take the stairs up to the top—always an exhausting experience—and Geddy's glad the food's already prepared by the time he sits at the table. Alex brings over the serving dish along with some silverware and two beer bottles. Inside the dish is a still-warm pile of creamy pasta. Geddy figures he's been given permission to dig in and does so.

Alex opens one of the bottles and takes a long drink. "So what'd you do today?"

"This and that," Geddy says with a shrug.

"Don't wanna talk about work, huh? I get it." Alex tips back a bit in his chair. "What's in the bag?"

Geddy realizes he's still wearing his shoulder bag. "Oh, um..." Would it be weird to mention he brought something for Alex?

"This and that?" Alex says, and Geddy feels his heart swell.

"Yeah, kind of. Well, I brought you something"—Alex's expression brightens impossibly—"but it's not anything impressive, so don't get too excited."

"Too late! I have to know!"

"I'll show you later," Geddy promises. A minute or two passes in a comfortable, easy silence while they eat before he speaks again. "Have you always lived here in this tower?"

Alex idly jabs his fork into the dish and plucks out a few log-shaped noodles. "No, we used to live in Xanadu."

Geddy hadn't thought about that before, but it makes perfect sense. Of course the founder's son would live in the richest district in Crown City. "'Used to'? What happened?"

Alex's face does that pained, closed-off thing before smoothing out. "He started getting... weird, I guess is the best way to describe it. He got really paranoid and thought someone was gonna steal me or corrupt me, and, y'know... Like I said, tortured genius." He smiles, but there's a stab of pain behind it that makes Geddy want to reach out and try to siphon some of that hurt. "So he had this place built."

"How long have you lived here?"

"Since I was"—Alex makes a squinty, thinking face that Geddy finds adorable—"sixteen, I think. Yeah, 'cause I didn't get to finish school; he wouldn't let me go back."

"Really?"

Alex glances away. "Shit, I—I probably shouldn't'a told you that, huh?"

"It doesn't bother me," Geddy says with a shrug. "I never finished school either."

Alex gives him a sheepish, appreciative look. He opens his mouth to say something but stops, as though reconsidering. "So, um, what do you—what do you like to do? Y'know, hobbies and stuff."

It isn't very often someone asks Geddy this question. He has to think about the answer for a moment. "I love baseball. I grew up wanting to play professionally, but since there aren't any teams for Crown City to play against, that dream sorta fell apart."

"What do you do now?"

"I... I read."

"You must be smart, huh?"

"Not as smart as you'd think."

"Is that modesty or self-deprecation?"

"Maybe a bit of both," Geddy tosses out with a lazy smile before realizing this might be considered flirting and he should probably dial it back. "I mean, your dad was a scientific genius; I'm not gonna say I'm smart at the risk of cheapening the word."

"People can be smart in different ways. My dad didn't know anything about running a city; that's why he had Danniels govern the place."

"So not letting people leave and banning the Old Nation's books was all Danniels' idea?"

Alex nods, looking dismayed. "I really don't think Dad foresaw the possibilities of giving one guy so much power, y'know? He was just... He was worried about the inevitability of nuclear war, and he wanted to get away from that. Create a self-governed city, secede from the Old Nation, and let it exist on its own."

"He never thought about the other floating cities having nuclear weapons?"

Alex gives him a strange look. "What other floating cities?"

He _doesn't know_. It's not surprising, given Crown City's ban on text from other nations, but if Alex's father told him about the end of the second World War and the USSR's path to obtaining nuclear arms, Geddy thought Alex might have more 'outside' knowledge.

For a moment Geddy wonders if any of that slipped out of his mouth, but Alex is still affecting him with that curious, perplexed look, so maybe not. "Um..." Geddy stops, because he's about to drop a hell of a bombshell here, and he feels like he's telling a child that Santa Claus isn't real. "Did you ever think maybe someone else might have discovered whatever it was your dad found that makes the city float?"

"No, I—I never really thought of that before..." Alex rubs the back of his neck. "If there's other floating cities, how come we can't see them?"

"The clouds might get in the way. And the cities are probably so distant we can't see them. The human eye can only see about 200 miles unobstructed."

"And you said you weren't smart."

Okay, that's definitely flirting, and it feels like being punched in the chest with a fist made of hope. "Well, it's just—your eyes can lie to you. Trick you into seeing things that aren't there or obscure things that are. And it's not a good idea to trust only in what you can see, 'cause you'll miss out on a lot in life."

Alex chews on that one for a while, and Geddy thinks he's said something good there in that weird little ramble. "How do you know about the other cities?"

Should Geddy tell him about Neil's collection? He doesn't want to get Neil in trouble on the off-chance Alex is a stickler for rules.

"C'mon, tell me," Alex pleads, and how the hell is Geddy supposed to resist that face? "I promise I won't say anything. It'll be our little secret."

The part of Geddy's brain ruled entirely by his emotions tells him to confide in Alex, because sharing a secret with someone supposedly brings you closer together. "A friend of mine has a collection of newspapers and magazines from the Old Nation. I told you I read a lot."

Alex blinks a few times, like he's struggling to process this new information. "You must know a lot about the world beyond Crown City."

"'The World Beyond Crown City' would make a really cool album title, don't you think?" Geddy's a little surprised when Alex laughs at that. "But, yeah, I do, I guess. More than most people."

"Do you think you could bring me some of those papers?"

"He might actually kill me if I take something from his collection. But maybe I could bring you sometime."

"Please?" Alex says with a smile that's impossible for Geddy to refuse.

"Of course."

After dinner, they settle in on the bed—because the chairs are hard and uncomfortable—and Geddy opens his bag. "Like I promised, here's what I brought for you. Kind of anti-climactic, I guess, but they're from the Old Nation." He hands Alex a stack of various comic books featuring Superman, Batman, and the Fantastic Four.

Alex grasps them like they're the most valuable things in the universe. "I thought your friend didn't like you taking his stuff."

"He doesn't. They're mine."

"How?"

"My parents and I moved to Crown City when I was about ten. So I've lived almost half my life in the Old Nation. I was feeling particularly rebellious when the laws were passed, so I kept all my stuff instead of getting rid of it."

Alex can only respond to that with a series of incomprehensible sputtering noises that Geddy finds endearing as hell. When Alex can finally manage actual words, he says, "Seriously? You've been there? You know what it's like?"

Geddy has never felt so important before. "Well, I didn't see the whole thing, just the small suburb where I grew up, but... yeah. I guess that's why I'm so obsessed with reading about it. Kind of... a reminder that it was all real."

Alex carefully opens one of the books to its first page. Geddy's heart beats a little faster when he realizes this is the closest they've ever been, lying side by side on Alex's bed with their shoulders touching. His throat feels unusually tight, his skin prickling as he imagines what he would do here if he were a braver man.

After a moment, Alex stretches out across the length of the bed, still engrossed in the comic. Geddy hangs his satchel on the bed post and joins him. He doesn't want to come across as a creep by just _watching_ Alex read, but he wants to memorize the way Alex's mouth twitches into a smile and the way his lashes flutter against his cheeks when he blinks. He thinks about tucking a chunk of Alex's hair behind his ear and moving in to capture his lips. He thinks about it, but doesn't do it, because he's an embarrassing virgin loser who's got absolutely no experience with this sort of thing. But Geddy is a fucking pro at hopeless pining, so he sticks with what he knows.

All it takes are a few quiet minutes between them on a soft, inviting bed and the continuous ticking of the clock for Geddy to notice how tired he is. He hears Alex chuckle quietly at something, then his eyelids slide closed, and it's a long, confusing journey into eventual darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

Geddy wakes up in a different position than he'd been in when he fell asleep. He's turned counter-clockwise, his face sort of smushed into a pillow. Alex must have rotated him to be more comfortable, which is really kind of sweet. He hadn't planned on staying the night, and he never realized at some point he must have decided Alex is safe, that this clock tower is a safe place.

There's a solid warmth against his back, and, holy shit, that's _Alex_. Alex is lying right up against him. Geddy breathes slowly and doesn't move, not wanting to wake him up. Then Alex is moving, making near-pornographic noises while he stretches his limbs, and Geddy feels a spike of heat low in his belly. This shouldn't be turning him on, but it would probably be impossible for anyone to wake up next to Alex and _not_ have an erection. Geddy pretends to be asleep. There's a shift of weight in the mattress as Alex gets up, and a few seconds later Geddy hears a door shut.

Should he sneak out now? There's nothing quite like an awkward morning-after, especially when there was no sex involved, just an awkward sleepover neither one of them really agreed upon or intended to have. But Geddy doubts he could hurry down the stairs without making noise, and the staircase is long enough that Alex would catch him trying to leave. And then what?

Sneaking out will do more harm than good. So Geddy sits up and combs his fingers through his unruly hair, waiting for Alex. He looks around the cluttered room, or, rather, the bedroom nook. There are half-finished paintings propped against the wall, small piles of books scattered across the floor. A bookcase on the other side of the bed holds more books, tubes of oil paint, a box of fancy chocolates, and an assortment of small wood-carvings and marble figurines. Draped over the opposing bedpost is a weathered red jacket. On Geddy's left is a cramped closet befittingly full of reds and blues and greens.

After a minute or two, Alex steps out and greets Geddy with his usual exuberance. "You're still here?" He sounds genuinely surprised, and Geddy feels like an asshole for ever considering sneaking out.

"Y—yeah, is that okay?"

"Of course. If I didn't want you around, I'd tell you to get the hell out."

"Well, you haven't said that yet."

"So don't worry about it! You want breakfast?" He's moving for the ladder to the kitchen, so Geddy's answer has no bearing on whether Alex will cook anything. "I make the world's best pancakes."

Geddy can't help but laugh at that. "Really? How was that determined?" he asks, rising from the bed and following Alex up the rungs. "Did you win a contest, or did you compete against everyone in the world?"

"Sometimes you just know."

"I think you're bullshitting me."

Alex makes it up the ladder. "Come here. I got a secret for you," he says with an inviting smile. "Closer. Closer." Geddy obeys until they're ridiculously close, and the air feels warmer already. Alex tugs at the loose material of Geddy's rumpled shirt and whispers, "You're going to love these."

Geddy can't blame himself too much if he's a little in love already.

After breakfast, when the pancakes are only a fond, tasty memory, Geddy makes a mental note to control the inappropriate noises his mouth makes when delicious food hits his taste buds, because Alex kept giving him amused looks that probably mean Geddy's an idiot.

Geddy becomes acutely aware of something nudging the inside of his ankle in a way that can't be accidental. He's not going to read into it, but he's absolutely going to revel in the physical contact all while pretending it's not happening. "Since you haven't asked me to leave yet... do you wanna do something?" That could have flirtatious subtext since Alex is practically playing footsie with him. "I mean, go out somewhere? I could show you my friend's collection of Old Nation literature, if you're still interested."

Alex gapes, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Please? I really wanna see it."

That sentence could have some interesting implications, too, but Geddy's choosing to ignore them. He's already had one awkward boner this morning. "Then we'll go."

When they leave the tower, Alex seems to have a grander appreciation for his surroundings than most of the cityfolk. Then again, if Geddy's father helped realize something this magnificent he'd probably be spellbound every time he left the house, too. As they stroll down the cobbled paths, passing by streetlamps and storefronts, Geddy steals glances at Alex and watches his hair flutter in the gentle breeze. He imagines tangling his fingers in those golden strands and capturing Alex's sensuous, pouty lips beneath his own. But that probably wouldn't go over too well, so he stuffs his hands into his pockets, feeling guilty of some kind of perversion.

If Alex notices Geddy's covert voyuerism he doesn't let on, content to admire the vibrant greenery and lively city around them. "Try not to look like a tourist," Geddy teases. "You live here."

Alex takes the jab in stride. "I know, but it's so incredible to me. My dad was responsible for this. I mean, he didn't build the place—Danniels took care of all that—but without his research the city wouldn't be airborne."

Geddy's inner jerkass wants to mention that, if Alex's father didn't figure out how to make Crown City float, Danniels would have found someone else who could. The thought makes him immediately feel like a douchebag. Neil's cynicism must be contagious. "Yeah, that's pretty amazing," he says instead.

"I guess it's not a big deal for you. You see this place all the time."

"You could, too, y'know."

"Well, maybe I will if you come with me."

"Nervous?"

"No, I just want company. Where's the fun in going to a restaurant or a movie by yourself?"

"I think the fun is in the experience."

"And I wanna share the experience with someone," Alex says, sort of insistently. Did he just subtly ask Geddy out on a date?

"Good thing I'm around." Geddy disguises it as a joke, but if Alex wants to go on a date with him he's absolutely giving permission for that to happen.

"I guess I could take one of the angels, but I usually get a lot of weird looks when I do that."

'Usually' implies that he's not only done this before, but done it more than once. Christ almighty. "From the angels or from everyone else?"

"Both!" Alex laughs, and Geddy wonders why he doesn't just kiss the guy right here in the middle of the town square. Probably because he's an idiot. But there's no logical reason for Alex to like him aside from Geddy being in the right place at the right time. Alex has spent the last six years in that tower; he'd be inviting anybody to spend time with him in a date-like setting. Geddy's just filling a void in Alex's life. He could have been anyone.

When they reach the library, Neil's busy shelving books, but Geddy doesn't worry anymore about disturbing him. He sidles into Neil's peripheral vision and puts on his best 'bestow upon me your brilliance, Great One' look, which, of course, Neil meets with disdain. "I don't have anything new for you."

"Not for me." Geddy gestures to Alex, who's standing beside him. "This is Alex Lifeson. He's a friend of mine."

Neil lifts a bushy eyebrow and studies Alex for a moment. "Lifeson... You're the guy who makes the angels?"

Alex's expression brightens. "That's me!" It must be unusual for him to be appreciated for his artistic abilities rather than just recognized as the founder's son. "I'm really glad you like them."

"Yeah, they're pretty magnificent. You're a very skilled artist." Neil leads them to the third-floor office. "So, Alex, how'd you meet Geddy?"

"He sorta broke into my house," Alex says with a chuckle. "But my house is the clock tower, so I can see why he thought nobody lived there."

"Why were you sneaking into the clock tower?" Neil asks Geddy with a hint of suspicion.

Geddy searches for a way to dodge that conversational brick. "I was taking a shortcut."

"Some shortcut," Neil huffs, and Geddy feels a prickle of nerves. Neil gets them inside the office and unlocks the attic entrance. "Why would the founder's son want to know about the Old Nation?"

"Geddy told me some things," Alex says, "and if there's other cities like Crown City, I wanna know. I was born in the Old Nation, but I was too young to remember it. Geddy remembers, and if he thinks there's something worthwhile about it, well..." He flushes a faint shade of pink, as though fearing he's said too much.

Neil considers this for a moment before turning his attention back to Geddy with a challenging look. He must have the impression that Geddy views Alex as more than just a friend, because Geddy's never brought anyone here before. The amount of logic holes in their meet-cute story doesn't help either.

"Just let us in," Geddy pleads.

Neil folds his arms over his chest. "How do I know this isn't a set-up? I know you wouldn't intentionally double-cross me, but you're kind of an idiot." Geddy frowns. "Maybe you let Alex sweet-talk you into coming here."

"He didn't sweet-talk me," Geddy feels compelled to argue. "I offered."

Neil scrubs a hand over his face and sighs.

"I don't wanna cause you any trouble," Alex says in a gentle voice. "I don't have anything to do with the contraband laws. And if I wanted to get you in trouble, wouldn't I have done it already?"

Neil's gaze flicks from Geddy to Alex, like he isn't sure whether to trust them. Eventually, he relents by pulling down the attic ladder. "I swear to God," he grumbles, looking at Geddy, "if this bites me in the ass I'm taking you down with me."

"Fair enough."

Alex makes it inside first, and he looks around at the bookcases and boxes of newspapers as though he's a child loose in a candy store.

"So," Geddy says, climbing inside and pulling up the ladder, "that's Neil."

"I don't think he likes me very much."

"He doesn't like anyone. But you being the founder's son probably makes it worse."

Alex huffs a sad noise. "It's not my fault."

Geddy feels the maddening urge to offer comfort, to go over to Alex and hug him or just lay a hand on his shoulder. But he can't bring himself to do it, too afraid of rejection. What he can do is offer up some of his own pain in hopes of relieving the burden Alex carries. "Of course it isn't. It's mine."

"What?"

Geddy sits on the floor, stares at his hands. "Why do you think Danniels made these laws?" Alex just tilts his head, unable to follow Geddy's logic. "When I was sixteen, I snuck out one night to go to some stupid party. While I was gone, someone broke in and..." Geddy takes a deep breath and forces the words out as though they're made of glass. "They killed my parents... I guess it forced Danniels to make citizenship more selective and ban what he thought might have been corrupting people."

For a while after his parents' deaths and his own relocation, Geddy found himself returning to the house after a long day, only remembering when he saw the bright, cheery flower bushes out front that he didn't live there anymore. Another family lives in that house now, and every now and then some part of Geddy wants to tell the new owners about the horrific crimes that occurred there. Maybe that will heal something inside of himself, or maybe it's just part of the masochistic streak he's cultivated over the years.

Alex looks more distressed now than he did before. "Since he and my dad were kind of a package deal for the city, he got blamed, too." His eyes hold more clarity than they had before. "Why do you think it's your fault?"

"Because if I had been there that night, maybe I could've stopped him. I think about it all the time. I'll probably never stop."

Alex doesn't immediately dismiss the idea the way Neil does, doesn't shake his head and hand him useless platitudes. It almost seems like he understands. "What happened to the guy who did it? Did he... Was he ever..."

"He was dealt with," Geddy says. He doesn't tell Alex how he went to the dark streets of Cygnus, alone and devastated and brimming with teenage anger and grief, and sought out the Wreckers. He doesn't mention how he hired the city's most cutthroat assassins to hunt down the killer and deal out their own brand of bloody, messy justice. There might be a lot of commonalities between them, but Geddy knows Alex could never understand that.

Alex nods and says, "That's good." He joins Geddy on the floor. "What were they like? Your parents, I mean."

No one's ever really asked about them before, save for Neil, and Geddy had only answered with the assistance of alcohol. "They were... good people. Too good. They both survived concentration camps in the second World War. My father and I had baseball to bring us together, but other than that he seemed a little bewildered by my interest in comic books and TV. The older I got, the more he sort of retreated into his work. So I became closer to my mother then." Geddy looks at Alex. "My real name is Gary, by the way. But the way my mother pronounced it... Well, that's where Geddy comes from."

Alex looks remorseful. "I'm sorry for saying your parents must've been drunk when they named you." Geddy smiles sadly. "I like Geddy. It's unique." The soft expression on Alex's face makes Geddy's pulse flutter.

"What about your mother? I've never heard you mention her..." Maybe it's a tender subject, and that's why Alex hasn't brought it up before. _Idiot._

Alex drops his gaze to his hands. "She died when I was young, so I don't really remember her..."

"Shit, I'm sorry."

"All I know about my mom is from what Dad told me. Apparently, she didn't want me when I was born, so after she died Dad and I came here." Crown City was established in 1955, so Alex must have been about two years old then.

"I'm sorry for bringing all this up." Geddy's not going to poke at this anymore. He already knows talking this much about his parents will cost him dearly tonight.

"It's okay. Somebody once told me not to make it all about the loss." Alex gives him a small smile and, goddamn, does Geddy want to kiss him. But he waits a moment too long, because Alex stands up and says, "Let's look at all these books, huh?"

Geddy pretends to read while Alex studies the newspapers, because he can't actually read the book in front of him with all the questions Alex is asking. At least Geddy gets to seem smart by providing answers.

"So the Old Nation is a place called Canada?" Alex says, stretched out in the sunbeam streaming in from the tiny, round attic window.

"Yeah."

"Does that mean there's a giant Crown City-shaped hole in Canada?"

"Yeah, they used large plots of land from northern Ontario because most of it was just forests."

"What district were you from?"

Geddy doesn't see the point in correcting him on the terminology. "Toronto."

"That sounds familiar..." Alex makes his squinty, thinking face. "Why do I know that name?" He shrugs and flips another page in the paper he's reading. "The world down below sounds kinda shitty. No offense. I mean, all the news is about horrible things happening."

Contrast that with Crown City's take on journalism, which primarily focuses on what the Old Nation would call 'fluff pieces.' Keep the people in a happy, optimistic bubble and they'll want to contribute to the city's growth. A constant barrage of negativity tends to breed cynicism.

"So you don't think anything bad happens here?" Geddy asks.

"No, of course not, but..."

"Neil would love to go on at length about this, but, in short, he says it's all a brainwashing scheme. The reason they give bad news the most attention is because they want people to be afraid enough to buy whatever they're trying to sell. Crown City is driven by expansion, but the Old Nation and its brethren are driven by commerce and capitalism."

"So... it's better that we're here?"

Geddy doesn't know how to answer that. "I think there's still brainwashing going on here, just for different ends. Don't you find it suspicious that they hide the existence of the other floating cities?"

Alex turns his gaze to the paper again, as though searching for answers in its text. "The Old Nation doesn't hide them. They mention us sometimes..." He looks at Geddy, suddenly pleading. "Do you really think someone else came up with the Lifeson Particle? Or do you think maybe my dad sold his research to other scientists?"

"I don't know. But if other people figured it out, too, that doesn't mean your dad wasn't smart."

Alex smiles in appreciation and turns back to the newspaper.

Time passes quickly, and Geddy doesn't realize how long they've been in here until he hears the sounds of the hatch opening and the ladder being pulled down. Neil climbs halfway up and says, "You guys are gonna have to leave. I'm getting ready to go home."

Geddy checks his pocketwatch. No way. It cannot be five o'clock already! How did they lose track of time like this? It never fails to surprise him how he can spend almost an entire day inside a library. "We'll be right down."

They reshelve books and refold papers, cleaning up their clutter before climbing down the ladder. Geddy feels compelled to apologize when he sees Neil. "Sorry. I didn't know we'd be in there so long."

Neil chuckles. "I'm used to it. What I'm not used to is you bringing somebody with you. I thought I might see something up there that could never be unseen."

Geddy's face might actually be on fire. He quickly risks a glance at Alex, who seems amused by the erronous assumption that Geddy took him up to the attic for a gropefest. "No, no, that's not—we were just reading, I swear."

Neil's mustache twitches above his smirk. "Whatever you say, dude." While Geddy's dying of embarrassment, Neil leads them out of the room and down the stairs.

"Thank you for letting me use your library," Alex says, always Mr. Polite. "I know it wasn't easy to trust me."

"Don't mention it," Neil says, although Geddy knows he means that literally.

When they get outside, the sun is beginning to set, casting an ethereal orange glow over the city. Alex's sly expression twists Geddy's insides. "Neil seems to be under the impression that we're dating."

Geddy's face goes hot again, and he tugs on the ends of his hair. "I didn't encourage him on that, he made it up. And he probably just said it to embarrass me. Don't—don't read too much into it."

"Okay, I won't," Alex says, still wearing that small smile. "Now where do you wanna go for our date?"

Geddy's reaching new stages of blushing today. "What date?"

"You said you'd go to dinner with me. Now's as good a time as any. Unless you're busy tonight."

"I'm not busy, I just..."

"Don't want me calling it a date?" Okay, now Alex is just fucking with him. Asshole. Adorable, infuriating asshole.

"No," Geddy says before he can stop himself. "It doesn't bother me."

"Good, 'cause I'm hungry. You got a place in mind?"

"Well, you're the food connoisseur, so maybe you should choose."

"Oh! There's a fantastic restaurant in Xanadu that serves the best steak. They had a bar about two feet away from all the cooking, which was always my favorite place to sit. I think it was called The Orbit Room or something."

"Yeah, that place doesn't exist anymore."

Alex pouts. "I guess it wasn't the best steak after all. What'd they turn it into?"

"I think it's a different restaurant now."

"So you've never been?"

Geddy feels a cold sweat prickle at the back of his neck. Rarely does he eat or drink at any of Xanadu's various establishments, because he can't really afford to spend five Silver Eagles on one fancy drink when he can get shit-faced in Cygnus for the same price. But someone who lives in Xanadu _would_ eat and drink there, and if Alex pokes too much at this he'll unravel Geddy's lie. And then what?

"No, not yet."

"Then that's where we'll go," Alex says decisively and heads for the Sky-Line. Geddy breathes out a quiet sigh of relief.

Alex is one of those Sky-Line passengers who stands by a window and gazes at the city below, childlike awe crossing his face when the train car breezes through the clouds. Geddy switches between admiring Alex and admiring the setting sun, all while trying not to think about being suspended on flimsy rails that could malfunction and send them plummeting thousands of feet to their deaths. The sensation of being perched so high is disorienting, making Geddy feel unbalanced even as he clings to one of the support poles in the middle of the car.

"You okay?" Alex asks, looking pointedly at Geddy's hands, which are wound tight and white-knuckled around the pole.

"I kinda have this thing about heights..."

"You live in a flying city. You know that, right?" Alex says with an uncalled-for amount of amusement.

"I try not to think about it too much." Geddy risks a glance out the window and feels his stomach flip.

"How's that working out for you?"

"Right now? Not good."

"Then I'll distract you." Alex moves closer and grabs onto the pole, his hands clasped beneath Geddy's own. He's standing in front of the nearest window, so Geddy will have to move a little if he wants to look at the world below. "How do you live in a floating city and be afraid of heights? I don't understand."

"How is this a distraction?" Geddy wonders.

"Just answer."

"I guess it was something I developed in my childhood before I came here. Childhood fears can be hard to shake."

"Except you've got constant exposure therapy, so..." Alex does that trailing-off-and-shrugging thing.

Geddy pouts at him. "Look, I don't know how my dumb brain works. Gimme a break." He notices a red star pendant hanging from a chain around Alex's neck. Tentatively, he reaches out and holds the pendant between his fingers. "What's this?"

"It's called a necklace. I dunno if they have them where you're from."

"Smart-ass. Does it mean anything?"

"Not everything has to have meaning. I wear it 'cause I think it looks cool. The end."

"Great story."

"I'm not a very deep guy," Alex says. "What you see is what you get."

Geddy looks at Alex and wonders what he sees.

Over dinner Geddy tells Alex about his childhood in the Old Nation, how nearly everyone there owns a car and drives down highways and roads that span for miles, and how there are places called art museums that display paintings and sculptures from both famous and unknown artists.

"You make it sound like such a nice place," Alex says.

"I don't think it's all bad. There's a lot of good if you know where to look."

"I wish I could visit and see for myself."

Geddy has often thought of ways to escape. The most effective way he's come up with would be to hijack one of the zeppelins used to transport passengers to the city. But that would require passing through the various security checkpoints at the Welcome Center, somehow eluding or bribing the security personnel, and being able to pilot the zeppelin once boarded. With Geddy's luck, he'd probably ace the escape but end up crash-landing the zeppelin and dying on impact.

"You think if they were willing to bend the rules, they'd bend 'em for you," Geddy says.

Alex gives him a humorless smile. "Yeah, you'd think so."

"You've tried before?"

"I wanted to visit my mother's grave. My dad said no, of course, but I was seventeen and rebellious. I went to the Welcome Center anyway, thought I could get a special exception." Alex shakes his head, his long hair swaying.

Surely the founder's son could get an exception if he asked for one, right? "Would you want to leave? I mean, hypothetically."

Alex's eyes widen. "I've never... I've never really thought about it. Crown City is all I've ever known."

"Well, at least there wouldn't be a language barrier. Unless you go to the Frenchy parts of Canada."

"I guess it would be kinda nice to live somewhere I could put my abilities to better use, but... sometimes the suffering you know is better than the potential suffering you don't."

"That's... awfully nihilistic. You and Neil would really get along."

"Are you sure your memories of the Old Nation aren't just rose-tinted by nostalgia?" Alex posits. "I mean... you had a lot of things back then you don't have anymore..." He's trying to avoid bringing up the subject of Geddy's parents and burning a lot of calories doing it.

"Maybe," Geddy admits with a shrug. "Maybe I'm just trying to get away from what happened."

Alex nods like he understands. "Sometimes I think about leaving the clock tower and living in a normal house like everybody else. As much as it creeps me out to live in the place where he... Sometimes it makes me feel closer to him, y'know? And the angels probably wouldn't fit in a regular house."

"They're really important to you, huh?"

"Yeah, they're my friends. Revolio Clockberg Jr., Scroopy Noopers, Krombopulous Michael, Zeep Xanflorp, and Brad."

Geddy lifts an eyebrow. "'Brad'?"

"Yeah, I ran out of creative names."

"I can't believe you named them." Geddy's having a hard time getting past that one.

Alex does something adorable with his face and glances away, chagrined. "Is that weird? I feel like it's weird."

"You're fantastically weird, Alex, but I wouldn't like you if you weren't." That feels like Geddy's said too much, like Alex can see the naked emotion burning across his face.

"You _like_ me, huh?" Alex comically bats his eyelashes, which makes Geddy laugh, then they're both laughing until it feels like there's the rest of the world and then there's them. They eat and laugh some more, and people come and go, and Geddy looks at Alex and begins to speak, ready to admit that, yes, he does like Alex more than he probably should. That, of course, is when the restaurant doors open and John Rutsey comes strolling inside, staring daggers at Geddy as he takes a seat at the bar.

The room slows down a little, quiets like the hush before a speech. Geddy stops talking, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. He should have known something like this would happen. John always manages to find him. Why would tonight be any different?

Alex reaches out, his fingers gently nudging the underside of Geddy's jaw closed. Geddy feels the void where his fingers had been, his skin hot and alive. Alex follows his gaze. "You know him?"

"Yeah..." A chill spreads through Geddy's stomach, turning his insides to ice.

Alex smiles wryly. " _Oh_."

"What 'oh'?"

"Ex-boyfriend, huh?" Alex says, nodding in John's direction.

Geddy's skin is hot for an entirely different reason now, his embarrassment burning through layer by layer until he, hopefully, combusts. "Um..."

John as an ex-boyfriend is a decent cover story. It explains why Geddy's so shocked and nervous to see him here, and it also implies Geddy's interested in dudes so he doesn't have to actually say it, since that seems to be somewhat of a problem for him.

Or would he rather tell the truth, that John is his "boss" who sends him on illegal missions to steal valuable goods?

"Yeah, we used to..." Geddy gestures in a way that's supposed to mean something.

Alex glances at John, then back to Geddy. "Oh. Well, it's probably for the best. No offense, I mean, I'm sure he's a nice guy, but—"

Geddy doesn't hear the rest of that sentence, because John's presence here is making him squirm, and he can't imagine what John wants from him now. He's sitting in a prime position to glare at Geddy all night over his mug of beer. Geddy is trapped, and he feels the moment he shared with Alex slipping away.

Alex waves a hand in Geddy's face. "Hey, just go talk to him. Get it over with."

"Are you crazy?"

"Probably. But what's the harm? You're over him, right?"

"Of course." Geddy rolls his eyes, but he can feel John staring through him.

"Either you go talk to him or he's gonna come over here and it's gonna be weird."

"You're the fuckin' big man of weird. You can handle it."

"I dunno if you can, though. I think you're already sweating."

"Shut up," Geddy whines. He contemplates ducking down under the table until John leaves. But he knows John isn't going to leave, not until he has his word with Geddy.

Alex tips his head in a thoughtful sort of way. "If you go over there I'll buy you dessert."

"You're bribing me?"

"It's not bribing. It's persuasion." Alex points to the plastic dessert menu. "And if you can't be persuaded by the promise of a chocolate chip cookie ice cream pie, maybe we can't be friends."

Alex makes a good point; once John leaves, things will click back into place. Geddy makes a show out of sighing and gets up from the table. "Fine, but I'm not doing this because you bribed me."

"Persuaded!"

Geddy moves toward the center of the restaurant and sits in the open seat beside John. John takes a long drink of beer before he says, "So, how do you know the Lifeson kid?"

"You're the one who's been following me. Why don't you answer that one?"

"Smart-ass." John moves so he's facing Geddy. "Speaking of asses, you gettin' inside of his?"

Geddy feels his skin burn and his stomach twist at the thought of Alex beneath him, naked and sweating and sighing. "You're the second person who's asked me that _today_."

"Answer the question."

"Why, John, I do believe you're jealous."

John huffs a humorless sound and glances briefly at Alex. Geddy follows his line of sight; Alex immediately looks away. "You know who he is, right?"

"The founder's son?"

"So I don't have to explain how reckless and dangerous this is. If he finds out what you are, about us..." John lets that one hang in the air and takes another drink.

"He won't find out." _Because soon my contract will be up and I can live an honest life, and Alex will never know the things I've done to make it this far_ , Geddy tells himself. He glances at Alex again. Their eyes meet briefly, and then Alex turns away once more.

"Although..." John scratches his chin. "This could be good for us. You might be able to persuade him."

There's that word again. "To what end?"

"His family name holds weight. You could convince him to talk to Danniels about lifting some of these laws."

Geddy's going to keep his mouth shut on that one. "Maybe. But I need time. I don't want to seem like I'm using him. It's probably frowned upon to ask for favors before the third date."

"So you've got a decision to make," John says, finishing his drink. He slides off his seat and drops two Silver Eagles onto the over-polished wood.

"Meaning what?"

"When the end of that third date comes around, what will you ask for? You gonna ask him to grease your wheels or ours?"

"No reason I can't do both," Geddy says, because he's an optimist.

John chuckles darkly. "That's real cute. Maybe if he's into a gaping lack of self-awareness, sure. See you around." He saunters off and slips out the door, leaving Geddy feeling small and confused and defeated.

When Geddy gets back to the table, Alex is staring at him in a mix of disbelief and amusement. "Holy shit, what did you say to him?" He glances back at the door like he's expecting John to come inside again.

Geddy shrugs. "I guess he isn't over me."

* * *

Alex holds Geddy's hand once they step off the Sky-Line and into Chronos Square. The waning sunset casts the world in soft pink hues, and Alex has never looked more beautiful than he does right now, the sunlight creating a shimmering halo around his head, his skin glowing like it's lit from within, the warmth of his hand electric.

They make it to the tower, and Geddy isn't sure what to do here. Should he try to kiss Alex? Or ask to come inside? Or should he just shake Alex's hand and walk away?

Alex, bless his rusty people skills, says, "Would you freak out if I kissed you?"

Geddy's freaking out _now_. "What?"

"That's a yes, huh?"

"Wh—no, I mean, it would be awesome, but—really? Why would you want—I mean, look at me. My nose is ridiculous. Have you seen you? You're almost too hot to be a real person."

"Almost?" Alex laughs, and then his hands are hot on Geddy's face, and Alex is kissing him like he never wants to stop, all open mouth and heat and wet slide of tongue. Geddy has never been kissed before, and definitely not like _this_. He pushes harder into the kiss, twisting his hands into the front of Alex's shirt and trying to breathe while the world spins beneath his feet. Their lips pop when Alex pulls away. "I've been wanting to kiss you all night."

"What stopped you?" This is a huge ego boost for Geddy, so he can afford to ask.

"Well... you."

"Oh, ouch."

"I wasn't sure if you would be... You got kinda weird whenever I thought about it, like you could read my mind and wanted to let me down easy."

"I was probably thinking about kissing you."

"You should have."

"I was nervous," Geddy says softly. He loves the way Alex looks at him, like he's the only person in the universe. Then he's being kissed again, shoved against the tower doors, and he hears himself gasping and moaning helpless noises around Alex's eager mouth. Geddy claws into Alex's hair, holding him close and desperate, and Alex's hands have drifted to his hips, keeping him pinned against the door while their lips crush against each other. It's exhilarating and terrifying, and it floods Geddy with a sweet desire he's never known.

When it's over they stay close, and Geddy feels the heat of Alex's breath on his skin. "You don't have to be nervous," Alex says. "I like you a lot."

As amazing as it is, Geddy isn't sure he likes the idea of making out in plain view of anyone with eyes. "Maybe we should go inside," he says, scanning the area for a familiar face.

Once they're inside the tower, Alex finds Geddy's mouth again and pushes him against the door, his thigh shoved between Geddy's legs as they kiss and grind against each other. It's impossible for Geddy not to push into that a little, and he whimpers around Alex's eager mouth. Alex plucks open the first few buttons of Geddy's shirt and shoves his hand inside to feel the skin baking underneath. He tugs at Geddy's belt, fingers working the latch, and Geddy makes a helpless noise when Alex kneels down and mouths over the hot skin of his stomach.

Somewhere in that surprised yelp is a note of hesitation, because Alex stops and pulls back breathlessly to look at him. "Do you not want me to do this?"

Isn't that the fucking question for the ages? Alex's lips are slick and shiny, his blue eyes wide in anticipation, and Geddy would have to be the stupidest person on the entire planet to refuse this. But he's great at making questionable life choices, so he says, "I want it, I swear, just—just not right now. I think it's too soon. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," Alex says, standing up. "You probably lucked out. I've never done that before. It could'a been a huge disaster."

Geddy has a hard time believing that. "You've never..?"

Alex snorts a laugh. "Wow, why are you so surprised? You must think I'm getting laid all the time."

"Well, look at you." Geddy hates sounding like a superficial dweeb, but with Alex's face and body there's no way he's inexperienced.

"I'm not as handsome as you think I am," Alex teases, curling his fingers in the front of Geddy's shirt. "This is all new to me, so I hope you're patient. Or maybe you can teach me a few things."

This would be the perfect opportunity for Geddy to admit his own shameful lack of experience, thereby making Alex feel better and reinforcing that this thing between them is right, that they can learn this together. But Geddy's already stuck in a lie about his past with John, so he's gone and shit the bed there.

Maybe he can pepper some truth into the lie. "Actually... John and I never got that far. So it's okay if you don't know what you're doing. I don't either."

Alex smiles, and Geddy thinks he's done something good here, that his honesty—well, partial honesty—has benefited them. Alex kisses him again, but this time it's slower and full of promise. "Do you wanna stay again? I've got some clothes you can borrow—I think we're about the same size."

As much as Geddy wants to spend more time with Alex, he doesn't want to overstay his welcome. "I should—I should go home. I've got some stuff to do in the morning anyway."

For a moment Alex looks wounded, but the disappointment is gone as quickly as it appeared. "Alright, so, I guess I'll see you around?"

"Of course. I get to kiss you now. That's awesome. I'm totally taking advantage of that."

Alex wiggles his eyebrows. "So why don't you?"

"Because I don't think I'll be able to stop."

"You sure know how to flatter a guy."

Geddy takes Alex's hands in his own and squeezes softly. "I'll come by tomorrow, okay?" Alex gazes at him in silent, eager hope, and Geddy briefly considers kissing him now, but he's frightened of where it will lead, of the inevitable escalation into something sweaty and breathless, the drag of hands over skin, the push and pull of bodies intertwined. So he lifts Alex's hand to his lips and kisses it. Immediately, his brain screams at him— _what the fuck did you do that for, you idiot?_ —because this isn't the goddamn Middle Ages and, Jesus, what the hell was he thinking?

"Who says chivalry is dead?" Alex quips, and Geddy's certain his face is the same shade as a tomato right now.

Geddy attempts to backpedal out of this conversation so the awkwardness can't hurt him anymore. "Um, I'm just—I'm just gonna go. I'll—I'll see you." He flees the tower like a vampire caught out at sunrise and wonders how he's even allowed to breathe.


	4. Chapter 4

There's a woman standing in Geddy's bedroom when he wakes up. Last night is a bit of a burgundy and white blur, but Geddy doubts he slept with her, since she doesn't look disappointed in his lack of sexual prowess or ashamed of herself for going to bed with him. So that's a relief. He blinks himself awake, shaking the cobwebs from his brain, and takes a good look at her. Her name is Nancy, and she's another Wrecker. She's a thief, too, which keeps Geddy on his toes, making sure she doesn't swipe anything.

"So, you and Lifeson, huh?" she says, leaning against one of the bedposts. "Good for you. He's cute."

Geddy drags a hand over his face. "You're following me, too?"

"I've got more important things to do with my time. John filled me in on your little date with Lifeson, though. How'd it go, by the way? You get some?"

"Why is everyone so concerned with my sex life?"

Nancy sits on the edge of the bed. "One, you're banging the founder's son. Need I say more? And two, whatever awful, fucked-up thing threw a wrench in your life, you seem to have stopped living after it happened. An emerging sex drive is a positive sign."

Geddy's never told Nancy about his parents, but she must know, on some unspoken level. They never talk about why they joined the Wreckers, and Geddy is no more privy to her dark secret than she is to his.

Geddy sits up and combs a hand through his messy hair. "Well, don't start celebrating yet."

"Oh no, did he give you the 'let's just be friends' spiel?"

"No, we just... haven't done anything like that yet..." Geddy feels his cheeks coloring red under the admission. He's not really keen on talking about his sex life with anyone, but Nancy is the closest thing Geddy has to a sister, which is really disheartening now that he thinks about it.

"Oh Geddy," Nancy sighs. She picks up last night's now-empty wine bottle off the floor. "Your virginity isn't a fine wine—it's not getting better with age. Because I'm your friend, I'm willing to take one for the team and sleep with you."

"I can't believe we're actually having this conversation," Geddy says, getting out of bed just to put some distance between himself and this ridiculous idea.

"We wouldn't be if you learned to keep your brain out of your bone. You both like each other, right? So what's the problem?"

"I'm just nervous, I guess, 'cause I've never..." Geddy shrugs, feeling like a fool for talking about this out loud.

"I seem to recall that Lifeson's somewhat of a hermit. I doubt he's got much practice under his belt."

"I know, I know, and it'll happen eventually, I just—You can be nervous and still want something, y'know?"

Nancy nods and moves over to him. She grabs his hair so she can study his face. "What's his name?"

A bit of a strange question, but Geddy rolls with it. "Alex." His face flushes a telltale shade of pink.

"This is your first crush, isn't it?"

Geddy doesn't have anyone else to talk to about this sort of thing—discussing matters of the heart with Neil is like trying to explain Mozart to a deaf man. So he shrugs and says, "Yeah, I guess. How could you tell?"

"Because you blushed like a schoolgirl when you said his name." She smiles when Geddy blushes again. "If he's smart, he's crazy about you, too."

Geddy chuckles softly and presses his lips to her forehead. She encircles her arms around his waist and rests her head on his shoulder, turning her face into his neck. "Did John send you here?" Geddy asks.

"He might've asked me to pass on a message, but I also might've told him to fuck off."

"'Might have' being the key words here."

"I came to see you," Nancy insists, sounding hurt that Geddy would assume otherwise.

"I know."

They disentangle, and Nancy pats his cheek with affection. "Be good," she says before heading to the door.

Geddy isn't sure he knows how.

* * *

He freshens up and changes clothes before taking the Sky-Line to the clock tower. It's a beautiful day, the early afternoon sun hanging high in the sky. A hummingbird flutters around the flower bushes in the Chronos Square. The air is thick with the aroma of fresh breads wafting from a nearby bakery. A police drone floats about, and Geddy can feel the distrust lurking in its camera eye.

Alex answers the door in his pajamas: a white t-shirt cut low enough to expose the soft pockets of his clavicles, and a pair of boxer shorts that put his long, toned legs on display. He gives Geddy a smile reserved only for him. "Hey, Spageddy!"

They've known each other four days, and Alex already has a nickname for him. Geddy surreptitiously gives Alex a once-over. "Do you usually answer the door like this?"

Alex adopts a thoughtful look. "Maybe that's why I don't get many visitors." He moves aside and says, "Well, c'mon in!" Geddy steps into the tower, and it's strange how comfortable he feels here. He can't stop glancing at Alex's legs, at the thin layer of fuzz over his chest, at the way his nipples press against the thin fabric of his t-shirt. This beautiful, funny, amazing guy, for some odd reason, actually _likes_ Geddy.

"So what's the verdict on the nickname? Yes? No? Maybe—"

Geddy chooses that moment to kiss Alex right on those pouty, beckoning lips, and Alex makes a breathy noise of surprise around his mouth. He tastes like mint, and Geddy grabs fistfuls of Alex's hair just behind his neck, wanting to touch all of him at once. Alex's hands settle on his waist, his tongue slipping into Geddy's mouth. Geddy wants this, wants it just as much as he did last night, but now with Nancy's words of wisdom under his skin, he feels a burning need to rid himself of his lack of experience. Alex is ready and more than willing, so why not? They owe it to the world and themselves to have exciting, intimate, and awkward sex.

Geddy pushes his hands underneath Alex's t-shirt, fingertips traveling along the valley of his spine. Alex makes a soft noise, his breath hot on Geddy's cheek, and pulls him closer. Geddy's acutely aware of Alex growing hard against him, as well as his own throbbing groin. Alex rasps out, "Do you wanna go upstairs?" and he's not even finished with the sentence before Geddy's saying, "Yes, God, yes, please."

The ridiculously-high staircase doesn't impede the mood as much as Geddy thought it would. They're over-excited and out of breath by the time they're in Alex's bedroom, and Alex pulls Geddy onto the mattress, his naked thighs wrapped around Geddy's waist as they kiss and kiss in a clash of tongues and crush of lips.

Their hands roam in eager exploration, cupping, squeezing, and stroking skin. Alex unfastens Geddy's belt buckle, and Geddy has to stop for a moment to pull off his boots. The interruption doesn't curb the frantic, needful thing they've created here, and Alex shoves his hands into Geddy's underwear to clutch at the curve of his ass. Geddy hears himself gasp, and Alex grins against his lips.

"Are you sure you've never done this before?" Geddy wonders while Alex strips his pants down his hips. "You seem like you know what you're doing."

"I know what I want," Alex says, his voice thick with sex. "And I know you want it, too." He works on the buttons of Geddy's shirt.

"What do you want?"

"You." Alex steals another kiss and lets Geddy's shirt fall open. His fingers glide up to the back of Geddy's neck, pressing against the spot where spine meets skull. "Inside of me."

Geddy hears a high-pitched sort of squeaking sound, then realizes it came from him. "I don't—I mean, I've never—" How is he constantly talking himself out of sex?

"It's okay, I can do it myself."

Geddy's mind races with fantasies of how Alex might look and sound with his fingers shoved inside of himself. But that's not what Alex has in mind at all, because he nudges Geddy onto his back with care, as though he might break, and straddles his hips. Alex folds over him and kisses his mouth. Geddy pulls Alex's shirt over his head, nipping at his collar bones and licking the hollow of his neck. His fingers find a nipple, and Alex moans, rocking his hips.

Alex manages to break away long enough to produce a half-full bottle of lube from somewhere in the bookcase by the bed. He moves so he can push Geddy out of his underwear, warm hands sliding over his hips, then his slippery fingers encircle him tightly. Geddy's breath catches in his throat, his hips involuntarily bucking into the touch. Alex strokes him just enough to leave Geddy aching and wanting. He steps out of his boxers and straddles Geddy's hips again. Geddy experiences a brief instant of panic as Alex sinks upon him, but he still wants this in every way he can have it.

Alex moans, taking him in like a champ, and Geddy's hands wrap around the soft edges of his hips, his thumbs brushing over the jut of bone. He's tight and warm inside, and no self-consciousness or awkwardness can survive that. Geddy shoves in deeper, and Alex makes a noise Geddy definitely wants to hear again. Hands slippery with sweat and lube, Alex links their fingers together and adjusts to the innate rhythm of their beating hearts and rocking hips. He's loud and wild and unrestrained, groaning in appreciation when Geddy bucks up into him, and it's all a shuddering, beautiful mess of gut-tightening pleasure, of kissing, rubbing, licking, stroking, rising, and falling.

Geddy holds tight onto Alex's hips and shoves in all the way, watches the perfect shape of Alex's mouth as he gasps his way through his orgasm. His whole body clenches, and Geddy doesn't know how to respond to that except to take what he needs until he's coming, too, whimpering half-formed words and digging his fingers into Alex's skin. Alex shivers through the comedown and slumps over him, his hair pooling in waves over Geddy's chest. "You were awesome," he breathes, his face flushed and damp, smiling down at Geddy through the hazy mist of evaporating sex.

"You weren't too bad yourself."

Alex laughs and covers him like a blanket, capturing Geddy's mouth underneath his own. His tongue glides over Geddy's bottom lip. "Did you come here just to get laid?"

Shit, is that how this looks? Geddy runs the last twenty minutes or so through his head and realizes, yeah, it kind of does. "N—no, of course not! It just seemed like the thing to do at the time."

Alex smiles and kisses Geddy's nose. "Well, you certainly did it. Fuck, I'm still shaking." He sighs and stretches out, resting his head in the fanned-out expanse of Geddy's hair.

Geddy mouths over the curve of Alex's shoulder while his fingers play along the valley of his spine. He's got a lot more confidence now that he knows this is something he can do, that Alex wants this from him. His hands try to memorize the topography of Alex's body, the feel of his shoulder blades, the curve of his ass, the notches of his vertebrae. Geddy licks the sweat from Alex's neck with the tip of his tongue. As Alex writhes against him, Geddy can feel the slick warmth of cum between their bodies, tacky and wet.

They spend the next few minutes kissing and touching and stroking, then Alex rolls them over and in no time they're at it again. Geddy slides in between Alex's damp thighs, and Alex digs his heels into Geddy's lower back, pressing him close as they move together. Alex gasps and makes ragged noises of stunned bliss with each solid push, his fingers clutching and grabbing Geddy's hips. It lasts a little longer this time, but with the way Alex is breathing hot and rough at Geddy's ear, any demonstration of tantric endurance is out of the question.

The afterglow from their second session leads into a third, and this time Alex is pulled up to his knees, and Geddy's behind him, panting hot over his spine as their hips shove and grind together. Alex's hands twist in the sheets, his mouth slurring out praises and encouragements, and it's all Geddy can do to keep cleaving into him. He skims a hand along the tensed length of Alex's thigh before bringing it in and wrapping his wet fingers around his dick. Alex whines in gratitude and rocks into it, begging Geddy to give him more. So Geddy does, and he thinks he might die, because every muscle aches, and the air between them is charged up so hot he can barely think.

Mercifully, Alex comes, going tight around him, and that's all Geddy needs to fall over the edge into his third orgasm. It physically fucking hurts, and he's whimpering and sort of sobbing against the slick skin of Alex's back, while Alex rides out the aftershocks and groans into the pillow like he's dying.

When they're finished, they lie panting and motionless on the wrecked sheets. Alex curls up alongside him and rests his head on Geddy's shoulder, fingers fanning over his chest, and Geddy sighs in contented exhaustion. He certainly never expected his first time to snowball into his first _three_ times, never imagined he'd find someone who wants him so badly. Then again, it's possible Alex was just venting many years' worth of sexual frustration here, and he'll take one look at Geddy now and wonder what the hell he was thinking.

But Alex just kisses his chest with tenderness, opens his mouth around a nipple. Geddy's breath hitches, and Alex looks up at him with a smile. "You're still here?" Geddy teases, half-heartedly.

"Of course. I like you, remember? And this is my house. Where would I go?"

"You could ask me to leave."

"Why the hell would I do that?"

Geddy tries to think of an answer that doesn't show too much insecurity. "Because you're good. You're so beautiful it actually hurts if I look at you too long. You're honest, impulsive, childishly sincere, and romantic, and I can't imagine anyone meeting you and not falling a little in love."

Alex's smile is like a ray of sunlight. "Are you?"

Geddy's cheeks flush a deeper shade of red. "We're not talking about me..."

"Tough shit. You had the sex, you suffer through the pillow talk."

Geddy brushes his fingers through Alex's hair, pushes the sweaty strands off his forehead. "I am in love, and it scares the hell out of me." Because what if he loses Alex, too? At sixteen years old, staring down as his parents' coffins were lowered into a gaping wound of a grave in the Crown City cemetery, Geddy intrinsically understood he wasn't meant to have nice things. Why would this time be any different?

"I'm not going anywhere," Alex says, pressing soft, lingering kisses to Geddy's chin and lower lip. "I'm here 'til you order me away."

"Which, I should warn you, is never gonna happen."

"You never know." Alex looks distressingly serious, like he actually believes Geddy might grow tired of him. "People change."

"I won't. Not that much."

"Not you..."

"Oh, that's awesome for my self-esteem."

Alex's eyes are wide and apologetic. "No, I didn't mean—I mean I might change into someone you couldn't love anymore." He speaks from a place of deeply-rooted worry.

Geddy shakes his head and pulls Alex closer. "Not gonna happen." Alex manages a small smile, and Geddy covers his inviting mouth with his own. If he'd known Alex would make it this easy to kiss him, Geddy wouldn't have been so afraid of it.

The moment's ruined when Geddy's stomach decides to announce that it's hungry, which sounds overly loud and destructive in the quiet of the room. Alex snorts laughter against his mouth, his hand trailing down the line of hair bisecting Geddy's stomach. "I guess I should feed you, huh?"

* * *

The district of Syrinx has an amusement park, so that's where Alex takes him. They have lunch on the upper boardwalk, which provides a breathtaking view of the Ferris wheel and the clockwork angel on the outskirts of the district.

"Did you make all the angels?" Geddy asks, levering out another slice of pizza from the pie they're sharing.

"Yep!"

"Just out of curiosity, did you name the ones in the districts?"

"No, my dad did: Xanadu, Dionysus, Syrinx, Cygnus, and Chronos. He just named them after the districts. My names are kinda... eccentric," Alex admits with a chuckle. "But I was about twelve when I started making them. It was mostly a way to get his attention 'cause he was always buried in his work. The first ones I made are featured in the Welcome Center, in the garden."

Geddy lifts his eyebrows. "That's impressive. Those angels are usually the first things someone sees when they come to Crown City."

Alex shrugs sheepishly. "I guess he was proud."

"Is there any sort of mythology behind them? I mean, why angels?"

"Don't they teach that in school?"

"How should I know? I never finished," Geddy says with a smirk, and Alex laughs.

"Well, I don't really know. There's something comforting about them, I guess, the idea of some celestial eyes watching over you. But like I said before, not everything has to have meaning."

Geddy focuses on his food for a few minutes, then he asks, "Did your father ever try to raise you into being his successor?"

Alex winds a long string of cheese around the tines of his fork. "My knowledge of science goes as far as 'salt is salty,' so I don't think there was ever any hope for me in that regard. I wonder how different my life would have been if I'd stayed in the Old Nation."

Geddy glances around the restaurant before leaning in a bit and lowering his voice. "Then why don't we just go? Neil already wants to leave. If we put our heads together, we could figure out a way to make it down there."

"Don't talk like that," Alex says, shaking his head. "I can't leave."

"Because you're scared?" Geddy's a little biased, because he doesn't have anything keeping him here. Escaping to the Old Nation would certainly be a novel way of breaking his contract with the Wreckers. He's got nothing to lose.

"Wouldn't you be if you were me? There's a difference between reading about something and actually experiencing it. It's easier here. Everything's predecided. With Dad's life insurance, I don't have to worry about money..." Alex trails off for a moment, his attention lost to something out the window. "I spend my time painting and making the angels. That's good enough for me."

"What happens when you make so many angels you run out of room in the tower? There's probably a limit on how many statues Crown City's willing to put on display. It might make the place look tacky if there's an angel in front of every store."

Alex purses his perfect lips and glances away. "And what if I get caught trying to escape? I won't get any special treatment because of who my father was."

Geddy feels a pang, reminded of his 'quest' from John. He shakes it off. "Alright, I'm sorry. I won't bring it up again."

"It's alright," Alex assures him. "Shit, I hope I didn't come off like a jerk."

"No way. But even if you did, it's okay. I was being kind of a jerk, too."

"Not really. It's natural for you to want to go back. You grew up there. Maybe you're just getting old and longing for nostalgia," Alex jokes. "What about Neil? Why does he wanna leave?"

"You'd have to ask him. He's a real private person, so I don't know if he'd appreciate me speaking for him."

"You think he'd tell me?"

"Probably not," Geddy laughs.

After lunch, the sun's beginning to set, casting the sky in pink and purple hues, and Alex strolls side-by-side with Geddy along the boardwalk, their fingers entwined. Geddy sneaks glances at Alex's profile, admiring the cute little shape of his nose, the way his pouty lips rest against his perfect teeth when he opens his mouth to breathe in the evening air. "It really is beautiful here, don't you think?" Alex says.

"You'd be used to it if you left your tower more often, Rapunzel."

Alex playfully elbows him in the side, their fingers never unlocking. "I don't think my hair's long enough for somebody to climb." He glances at Geddy for a moment. "Yours is getting there, though."

"Ha-ha," Geddy dead-pans. "I guess there is a certain charm to this place. I can see why people would be attracted to it. It looks like paradise."

"It could be. Sometimes you have to appreciate what's in front of you and stop measuring it against what you've lost."

"Easier said than done."

"Most things are," Alex says, shrugging.

They make it back to the tower a little while after the sun's disappeared and end up falling into bed again. Geddy can't help it; he's got a gorgeous, amazing guy who wants to kiss him and touch his dick—of course he's going to take advantage of that at every possible opportunity. He settles underneath the warm weight of Alex's body, moaning contentment as Alex sucks kisses into his neck.

Alex takes his time winding Geddy up, dropping kisses along the length of his body, nails drifting down his ribs. He bites at the warm spot where Geddy's biceps and forearm meet. His tongue flicks at a firm nipple, holding the nub gently between his teeth as his hands ease Geddy's legs apart. Alex's mouth is hot over the inside of Geddy's thighs, his breath so impossibly close to Geddy's dick, and he feels aching and used already. He writhes in the sheets, making soft, pleading noises under Alex's lips. He hears the snap of plastic, and he jumps when a slippery finger pushes inside of him. Geddy hears himself swear and choke out Alex's name.

"You good?" Alex asks.

The words vanish in Geddy's throat, so he just nods and whimpers. Alex presses in, working him open with gentle fingers, and Geddy shakes under the slow stroke of his hand. Alex is watching it all with naked desire, his tongue running over his bottom lip ever so slightly when Geddy rocks his hips into the touch. As weirdly awesome as this is, his dick feels a little neglected, so Geddy reaches down to alleviate some of the tension, but Alex's other hand whips up and stops him.

"Not yet," he huffs. "I wanna—I wanna be inside you. Is that... Will you let me do that?"

Holy shit. "I won't last very long." His dick's hard and leaking against his stomach already.

"'S'okay," Alex breathes, easing his fingers out before getting his cock filthy with lube. Geddy watches the way his hand works, twisting at the head and sliding up, down, up, down, then Alex is pressing the head of his dick where his fingers had been. Geddy yelps, but it doesn't hurt like he thought it would. It's more of an oddly full feeling, and his hips push into it without consulting him first. Alex covers Geddy's mouth with his own, swallowing his needy sounds as they find a rhythm that works for them. Every twitch and push of Alex's hips forces loud gasps out of Geddy's throat, but Alex doesn't seem to mind, breaking off kisses to look at him with adoration.

Geddy feels the flex of Alex's fingers around his thigh, the hot crush of lips against his chin and his neck, the way Alex's dick splits him open. Then he feels Alex go off inside of him like a volcano, his hips stuttering and jerking, and Geddy clutches at Alex's shoulders and surrenders to a loud, unrestrained orgasm. He's shaking, the breath hitching in his chest, cum puddled on his stomach. Alex's thrusts lose steam, and he sort of collapses on top of Geddy, huffing laughter around soft, biting kisses.

"I didn't know you'd make so much noise."

Should Geddy be embarrassed about that? "Sorry."

"Don't be. I wasn't sure if I was any good until you got loud."

"Well, you were pretty fantastic." Geddy still feels dizzy and disoriented, his heart thrumming madly behind his ribs.

"I aim to please," Alex says with a happy grin before stealing another kiss. He tangles his fingers with Geddy's own and sits up, pulling him along. "Come on. Shower."

It takes them a while to get to the whole cleaning part, but Geddy's not complaining.


	5. Chapter 5

Geddy wakes up with his heart pounding like it's trying to break free. A cold sweat covers his skin, his cheeks clammy with tears. His anxiety rises when he doesn't see Alex beside him in the bed. They'd fallen asleep together, skin and hair still damp from the shower, and Geddy tries not to panic too much that Alex isn't here now.

The bathroom door is flung open, and the light is off. Geddy disentangles himself from the sheets and goes to investigate. Maybe Alex didn't turn on the light because it's dark in here and he didn't want to blind himself. And maybe he forgot to close the door because he's been living alone for the past year and probably got used to the luxury of having total privacy.

But Alex isn't inside. Geddy struggles not to let his imagination create some horrible, tragic abandonment scenario. Alex wouldn't just leave; he lives here. He's probably upstairs in the kitchen. So that's where Geddy goes next. He climbs the ladder to the second floor, and a wave of relief watches over him when he sees Alex sitting at an easel and dabbing paint on canvas.

Geddy's sigh of relief catches Alex's attention, and Geddy feels compelled to explain why he's here. "I, uh, I thought you left."

"Where would I go?"

Geddy doesn't have an answer for that. He moves closer to examine the painting Alex is working on. It's kind of terrifying to look at, though it probably isn't meant to be. But the claustrophobic architecture of the room depicted on the canvas, the way the lights have lines coming off of them like they're screaming, and the faceless figures milling about fill Geddy with an undefinable dread.

"What are you doing up here?"

"Painting, dingus."

Geddy walked right into that one. "Why?"

"I couldn't sleep."

Geddy notices the half-empty decanter of absinthe at Alex's feet. "Well, this should help." He sits on the floor and takes a drink from the bottle. Alex doesn't seem to mind. He reaches down and pushes a hand through Geddy's hair with the utmost tenderness. The touch makes fresh tears well in his eyes, and Geddy blinks them away, leaning against the chair and the soft yield of Alex's pajama-clad thigh.

They sit that way for a while, passing the bottle back and forth, existing in the silence punctuated by the tick of the clock hands and the quiet scratch of bristles over canvas. Emotions swirl dizzily in Geddy's head, muddied by the absinthe. He watches Alex paint, studies the far-away look on concentration on his face. Occasionally, Alex's fingers will trace the edge of Geddy's jaw or comb through his hair, and Geddy feels oddly vulnerable.

Alex sets down his brush and plucks the bottle from Geddy's fingers. He takes a long drink, shivering as he swallows. "My dad committed suicide," he says with absolutely no preamble.

Geddy's mouth drops open, because whatever he was expecting Alex to say it certainly wasn't that.

"He hung himself." Suddenly, the jungle of metal chains hanging from the ceiling over the main staircase seem more sinister. "I found him the next morning..." Alex's fingers flex around the bottle neck, and his face creases in a lost expression, like talking about this means reliving it. "Sometimes I can remember the good things about him, but mostly it's just... _that_. Over and over. How do you get something like that out of your head?"

"You don't. You just repress it with lots of alcohol," Geddy says, taking back the bottle.

Alex gives him a pained half-smile. "I'm well on my way, then."

"I have the dreams, too," Geddy admits, because he thinks that's why Alex has been sitting here for God knows how long chugging absinthe and capturing madness on canvas. "I found my parents..." He washes the image away with a long drink. "Do you think it's weird we have so much fucked-up shit in common? I mean, there's this undercurrent of mutual loss between us that sort of makes our connection even stronger. If we hadn't suffered like this, we probably wouldn't understand each other so well. It feels kinda wrong to reap the benefits of their deaths."

"I have to believe that's how they would have wanted it."

"That's way too well-adjusted for me. I'm telling you, man, you and Neil would really get along."

"Hm, maybe I should date him instead," Alex teases.

"He probably wouldn't put out as easily as I do."

Alex's laughter is warm enough to melt things in Geddy's chest. "Lucky for you, I'm not big on facial hair. And Neil doesn't seem like the type of guy to get all red when he's embarrassed."

"So my inability to control my blood vessels is a turn-on for you?"

"Oh yeah, I love making you blush." Geddy hides behind his hair, which Alex totally calls him on. "You're blushing right now, aren't you?"

"Shut up... It's not my fault I can't control my face."

"You're so cute," Alex says, and there's a slur to his voice courtesy of the absinthe.

"You're drunk."

"You're still cute."

Geddy stands up and places the bottle out of Alex's reach. "C'mon, let's go back to bed," he says, helping Alex off the chair and onto his feet.

"You got it, stud," Alex purrs, and Geddy still isn't sure if he's drunk or just flirting.

They slide into bed together. Alex throws an arm around Geddy and pulls him close, and Geddy can't stop thinking about how when he was little he'd crawl into his parents' bed after a bad dream and his mother's arms would encircle him and he'd smell the familiar scent of his father's aftershave and he'd feel safe. Alex is warm and smells of bergamot spice and blue sage, mixed with the traces of absinthe on his breath. Geddy thinks Alex's arms could be a safe place, somewhere that feels like home.

The lullaby of the absinthe and Alex's soft breathing allow sleep to fall down on Geddy like a heavy curtain.

* * *

The next time Geddy wakes up, Alex is there beside him, his golden hair splayed over the pillow. For reasons of which Geddy's not entirely sure, he's filled with an immense gratitude that Alex is still here. He doesn't want to disrupt this perfect moment, so he lies there and watches the subtle rise and fall of Alex's chest. It's a bit boring watching someone sleep, though, so eventually Geddy searches for something else to hold his attention.

On the second shelf of the bookcase by the bed is a small framed photograph. The glass covering the picture is cracked down the middle. Geddy picks up the frame. It looks like a family picture, the colors worn and faded, and one third of the family is a baby that Geddy assumes must be Alex, because why else would Alex have this picture? So the man and woman in the photograph must be his parents. They look happy and youthful, maybe about Alex's current age. Geddy looks at the picture for a long time, at Alex when he couldn't have been more than two years old. That poor kid has no idea what's going to happen to him over the next twenty years.

"What're you doin'?" Alex mumbles, his voice barbed and frayed with sleep.

Geddy sort of jumps and scrambles to put the picture back on its shelf. "Just, um, looking around."

"Yeah, I can see that." He presses up against Geddy's back and eases an arm around his waist.

"That picture... Is that you and your parents?"

"Yeah," Alex breathes into Geddy's hair.

"They looked really happy."

"I guess. I dunno why my mom didn't want me."

"Of course she did. Who wouldn't want you? You're awesome."

Alex holds him tighter. "You're just sayin' that 'cause I've got a world-class schlong."

Geddy laughs. "Yeah, that's probably it."

"Speaking of world-class schlongs..." Alex rolls Geddy onto his back and kisses his way down his body. His tongue swirls around Geddy's navel for a brief, blissful second, then he's wrapping his fingers around Geddy's cock, his thumb stroking the bulging vein on the underside. Geddy makes a noise that's subsumed in a gasp as Alex swallows him down, his mouth hot and wet and perfect.

* * *

Geddy stumbles out of the tower in the late afternoon, well-fed, well-fucked, and drunk on Alex's affection. He still can't believe someone as sweet and gorgeous as Alex is interested in him. It doesn't make sense, but Geddy's too blissed-out to examine this too deeply.

Instead of taking the Sky-Line to Cygnus, he heads in the opposite direction towards Chronos Square for a drink. He walks along the cobblestone streets, passing by a charming assortment of shops with names like the Crown City Creamery, Presto Café, Before & After Salon, Anthem Records, and Earthshine Candles. Geddy strolls along, searching for the nearest tavern. Instead, he spots a mustachioed man who looks a lot like Neil standing outside the drugstore smoking a cigarette. But it can't be Neil, because his face looks like it lost a fight to a pair of fists. As Geddy moves closer, he discovers that, holy shit, it _is_ Neil.

"Neil, what happened to your face?" Geddy asks in his usual way of friendly teasing, which makes it all the more surprising when he's snatched by Neil's powerful hands and yanked violently around the side of the building. Geddy's back slams against the concrete wall. "Ow, with the roughness!"

"Your asshole friends is what happened!" Neil growls, and Geddy resists the rare chance to correct his grammar. "They came to the library after I closed and asked about my stash. I refused to reveal that information, so they did this!" He points to the inflamed, red skin of his left eye. "I warned you Lifeson was bad news, didn't I? But you listened to your dick, so now my face is going to be painful and multi-colored for the next few days, and I'm gonna have to fulfill my word on killing you!" His mustache looks like an angry bat bouncing up and down as his lips move.

"Alex didn't do this, okay? It's not his fault! He doesn't even know these guys!"

"But you do? What the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

Geddy runs through his options here and concludes he has a grand total of one: be honest. Neil won't stand for any side-stepping or verbal evasion, and Geddy can't afford to become acquainted with Neil's fists. "They're part of a, um, an underground insurgency group."

"So, terrorists?"

"That's... not exactly the word I would use."

Neil makes a disgusted noise and cuffs Geddy around the back of the head. "Are you serious? You're part of this? What is wrong with you?"

"I didn't have a choice! I had to—"

"There's always a choice. You just picked the wrong one."

Geddy huffs out an angry breath, wetness stinging his eyes. Now is not the time to argue that particular subject. "I hired them six years ago to deal with the bastard who killed my parents."

"You hired assassins."

Geddy squeezes his eyes shut. "I really wish you'd stop doing that."

"Doing what? Refusing to dress up the shit you're involved with in friendly euphemisms?"

"Well, if you spend all day shuffling words around you can make anything sound bad."

"It works just as easily the other way around. What's your point?"

Geddy tugs at the long ends of his hair, thumping his head back against the wall with a groan. "God, I never wanted this to happen! And I swear I never said a word about your collection! I never even mentioned you!"

Neil is unmoved. "Then how do they know?"

"They've been following me. I guess... Maybe they saw me at the library and figured there must be something worth investigating there. I don't know—Did they threaten you?"

"They did a whole lot more than that," Neil dead-pans, and, yeah, his face hurts to look at. Point taken. "So, what, you've been these guys' bitch for six years?"

"Phrasing," Geddy winces, because he really doesn't want to think about it that way. "And, yeah, when you hire them they sorta own you for a while until you've 'paid off' your debt."

"And how do they exercise this 'ownership'?" Neil frowns. "Oh God, tell me they don't—"

Geddy refuses to let Neil finish that sentence. "No! No, it's not like that. They just... give me jobs to do."

"Still not convincing me this isn't some sort of sexual slavery ring."

Geddy sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. Neil's being purposely obtuse to force Geddy into explaining in layman's terms what the Wreckers do. "They have me steal stuff. And I get a cut from whatever the haul is."

"Oh, nice," Neil says with sarcasm so thick he could drizzle it over pancakes.

"Hey," Geddy snaps, "if someone took away the people you love and you knew you could take vengeance, are you really so high up on that horse that you wouldn't even consider it, even for just a moment? Yeah, I screwed up, and I'm paying for it, but you don't get to act like you're better than me."

"Are you done?" Neil asks when Geddy's run out of breath. Geddy huffs and folds his arms over his chest. "Does Lifeson know what you're mixed up in?"

"No! And if you tell him, I swear to God I'll—"

"You'll have me killed too?" Neil chuckles at Geddy's horrified expression. "Relax, I'm just bustin' your balls."

"Yeah, well, I've got sensitive balls," Geddy murmurs, glancing off.

"I bet Lifeson knows all about that, huh?" Neil grins, and Geddy thinks they're okay now that Neil's joking with him. He looks at Geddy for a long moment and shakes his head like a parent who's discovered their kid's covered the walls in crayon. "I'm still mad at you. I'm going to continue to be mad at you for the forseeable future and possibly beyond. But be careful, alright?"

"Yeah."

"One more thing. You said these guys own your contract, right? What makes you so sure they're going to let you out?"

Geddy opens his mouth to argue, but the words don't come.

"Six years is kind of a long time to be repaying a debt, wouldn't you say?"

It's not as though Geddy's debt to the Wreckers is impeding any life dreams, since Crown City doesn't have a baseball team. Only since meeting Alex has Geddy truly wanted freedom.

"They're thieves and killers, Geddy. Not really the kind of people known for keeping their word." Neil shrugs and walks away. "Just something to think about."

Well, fuck.

* * *

John finds Geddy in a nearby tavern a little while later. He drops into the empty chair in front of Geddy and studies his face for a moment. "You look like you've seen some shit."

"You didn't have to hurt Neil."

John scoffs and rolls his eyes like Geddy's being unreasonable. "He wouldn't cooperate. My hands were tied." His bottom lip is split, and there's a dark purple bruise near the edge of his jaw. Geddy smiles to himself; Neil must have gotten a few licks in.

"He hit you?"

"He's pretty strong for a skinny guy."

Geddy fights a smile.

"Did you talk to Lifeson yet?"

"Yeah," Geddy lies, because he needs to buy more time to think of a better plan. "He said he'll talk to Danniels tomorrow." He takes a drink from his half-empty beer. "What will you do if this works? I mean, you guys were doing this stuff before the new laws, so... What's your endgame here?"

"We provide a service that people like you need. It's not really more complicated than that. Danniels' batshit policies have given us a lot more opportunities, but we're really looking to close that door. It's getting harder to stay underground."

So the Wreckers will just keep on keepin' on, then. Wonderful. Geddy remembers Neil's earlier warning and feels his chest hitch. His gaze drops to his glass. "What happens if you get what you want? I mean, how much closer would I be to fulfilling my contract?"

John considers that for a moment. "You have been with us for a while... And you do good work. I could put in a word with the Boss, have you promoted. How'd you like to do what I do? Just give orders to a handful of guys, not have to worry about gettin' your hands dirty."

"That's... a really nice offer, but I think I'd rather just cash in my chips and get out, y'know?"

John makes a face. "You're a damn good thief, Geddy. It's be a shame to let all that talent go to waste."

"Be that as it may, I was under the impression I'd be allowed to leave when my contract was fulfilled."

John drags the beer mug across the table and takes a drink. Geddy wants to protest but doubts he's in any position to do so. "Leave and do what? You never finished school. You're hardly qualified to do anything but work in the factories, and even that's a crap-shoot. What better life do you think is out there for you?"

A life with Alex, a life where he doesn't have to lie and dodge questions about what he does for a living. But Geddy's not going to give John more ammo here. The main question is why does John want to keep him so badly?

"You're not letting me go, are you?" Geddy asks, cutting to the chase.

John gives him a look of offense. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you keep beating around the bush."

"I'm just no good at delivering bad news."

"Could'a fooled me."

John stares straight through him. "There is a way out, Geddy."

"Which is?"

John finishes the beer and stands up. "Why don't you think about it?"

He walks away before Geddy can answer. In a perfect world, Geddy would get up from the table and storm over to John and just _clobber_ him. But this is the real world, and in the real world John gets to manipulate him and string him along and attack his friends without any consequences.

Geddy stares into his now-empty beer mug and orders a refill.

* * *

He wakes up the next morning with a world-class hangover. An empty bottle of wine lies beside him in the bed. He doesn't remember what kind it was, and his eyes are too blurry to read the label. He hears muffled sex noises from next door: feminine squeals, the shift and creak of bedsprings, the rhythmic banging of a headboard against the wall. Just listening exhausts Geddy, and he can't imagine ever having the strength to have sex again. It does, however, make him wish Alex were here now, if only to wrap his arms around him and soothe the manic pulse of his headache.

But Alex isn't here. It's just Geddy, his wine, and his myriad of poor life choices. Geddy's no stranger to hangovers, but this one is particularly potent due to its circumstances. He doesn't want to be awake anymore, because being awake will only lead to contemplating the mess he's made of his life, how the Wreckers refuse to uphold their side of the bargain, and palpable anxiety grows in his belly at the notion of even thinking about it.

Eventually, the couple in the next room grows quiet, and Geddy drifts back to sleep, too fatigued to do anything else.

When Geddy wakes again, the pink stains of twilight are fanning out across the sky like long fingers. His headache has ebbed into a dull throb, which encourages him to crawl underneath the hot spray of the shower. It takes him about twenty minutes to actually get out of bed, but a slow start is better than none at all. He sits at the bottom of the shower basin and spends a very long time under the water, staring at the off-white tile, the cracks in the grout, the peeling surface of the tub.

There's nothing to do in the shower aside from think, wash, and masturbate, and Geddy doesn't have the energy for that last one. So what now, he wonders. If the Wreckers won't let him out of his contract, he'll have to find a way out that doesn't involve dying. Maybe it's still worth sending Alex to Danniels and trying to get these laws repealed. It doesn't make sense that the founder's son wouldn't have a tiny bit of pull in a matter like this. Maybe Alex was deemed too valuable and wasn't allowed to leave under any circumstances. The laws had just gone into effect when Alex was seventeen, so it's likely the Crown City government didn't want to bend the rules so early. Or maybe it's because he was a minor at the time.

There's too many extenuating circumstances to rule out Alex's possible influence. It may, in fact, be highly prudent to have him speak with Danniels about this. If Alex can get the emigration law repealed, Geddy could leave Crown City and be free from the Wreckers.

That little spark of hope gets Geddy moving, and he finishes his shower, throwing on a pair of pants and one of his mother's old, warm sweaters to combat the cold night weather. He's not helpless, he thinks desperately as he takes the Sky-Line to Chronos Square. He can find a way out of this. There's always a way. As Geddy watches the lighted signs from storefronts pass by the train window, he imagines a life in the Old Nation with Alex: waking up beside him each morning, leaving him silly love notes on the refrigerator, batting for the Toronto Blue Jays while Alex makes a living as a chef or a painter, sharing the bits and pieces of their lives together. It's worth fighting for.

Geddy navigates through the cold, lonely streets and arrives at the clock tower. He knocks on the door, and after a few seconds Alex is there. He's dressed in a faded knit sweater that hangs to his mid-thigh. Geddy actually finds himself tilting his head a bit to see if Alex is naked under there.

"Spageddy," Alex says with a grin, then, noticing Geddy's wandering eyes: "I'm wearing underwear," he says, lifting up the sweater and allowing Geddy a quick flash of briefs. "But if you play your cards right, you might get to take 'em off." He lets Geddy inside. "You okay? You look kinda..." Alex trails off, his face scrunched in thought.

"Shitty?"

"I was trying to find a nicer word."

Alex's innocent humor melts Geddy's heart. "I'm still sort of hung over," Geddy says, rubbing his eyes. "How do you get down here so fast? Or are you always at that work bench over there?"

"I use the chains."

Geddy stares up at the long, dangling chains hanging from the ceiling. "You... Really?"

"Yeah, just slide down 'em, like Tarzan. Or grab on, let go, and grab again before you hit the bottom. It's fun. You should try it sometime."

"You remember my thing about heights, right?"

"How could I forget?" Alex says, playfully rolling his eyes and dragging Geddy in for a kiss. Alex's mouth is still new and invigorating, and Geddy lets him lead, lets his tongue lick at his lips and glide against his own. "You don't taste hung over."

"I brushed my teeth, of course."

"You expected to get some, huh?" Alex captures his mouth again, his hands squeezing Geddy's hips with the slightest pressure and making him feel a little light-headed.

"You've shown yourself to be kind of insatiable," Geddy argues around Alex's eager mouth.

"'Insatiable'? Listen here, Mr..." Alex pauses. "What's your last name?"

"Lee," Geddy supplies, because apparently being playfully scolded through kisses is a bit of a turn-on for him.

"What is with you and these made-up names?"

"How is that made-up?"

"Geddy Lee: sounds a little too perfect, don't you think?" Alex leads him up the staircase. "What's your real last name?"

"I just told you."

"Bullshit," Alex sing-songs.

Geddy huffs in annoyance.

"C'mon, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

"You mean Lifeson isn't your real name?"

Alex shrugs. "Well, roughly translated..."

"I can't believe you lied to me," Geddy says, feigning offense.

"I didn't lie. I just didn't tell you the truth. And you still haven't told me what you do for a living, so do you really wanna go down this path?"

Geddy doesn't. "It's Weinrib. My name, I mean."

"Now see? That wasn't so hard," Alex says with smugness.

"Your turn."

"Zivojinovic."

Geddy blinks. "Did you just have a stroke?"

Alex laughs, sweet and unrestrained. "So you see why I changed it."

"I dunno, I kinda like it. Lifeson sounds very... portentous."

"Yeah, what a disappointment I turned out to be," Alex chuckles.

When they make it upstairs, they crash onto the bed together, and Geddy's hangover is a distant memory under Alex's hands and mouth. Alex sucks kisses into Geddy's neck, fingers spread over the lattice of his ribs. "You're really proving my point about you being insatiable," Geddy says.

Alex sits up, nestled firmly in Geddy's lap, and tosses the hair out of his face. "So you're not enjoying this?" He grinds down, aggravating Geddy's already-throbbing erection.

Geddy makes a high-pitched gasping noise through his teeth. "Now where'd you get an idea like that?"

"Maybe because you're sitting here complaining about me wanting your dick."

Geddy doesn't think he'll ever get used to how blunt Alex is, how he wields his wants like a weapon, piercing through Geddy's armor. "So, _so_ not complaining, but, um, I really wanna ask you something."

"Yeah?" Alex trails his fingers down Geddy's sides, watching him curiously.

"You're kind of, um, on me. It's hard to think."

" _Hard_ , huh?" Alex purrs, but he climbs off Geddy and slides off the bed. "Go ahead and ask. I'm gonna get dinner started."

Geddy groans a long, dragged-out sound of sexual frustration, because, seriously, Alex is just gonna leave him hanging like this?

"Relax. I'm coming back," Alex says, heading for the stairs to the upper level. "We'll have to kill time somehow." Geddy ignores his own aching balls and follows Alex upstairs to the kitchen. "So what'd you wanna ask me?"

Alex refuses Geddy's assistance in the kitchen, so Geddy's got nothing else to do but sit at the table and awkwardly spill words out. "I was just thinking... Maybe it would be a good idea to go to Danniels and ask him to abolish some of these laws. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why they might've said no back when you wanted to leave. But that doesn't mean you couldn't persuade him now."

"Where's this coming from?" Alex asks, switching on the oven.

"I just... think it's a good idea, y'know?" Geddy isn't sure how to phrase 'a band of insurgents will kill me if you don't get these laws repealed' in a way that's not alarming. "All this exclusivity just does more harm than good. And how are you supposed to trust a government that condones censorship? People shouldn't be imprisoned here. If they wanna leave, they should be able to."

"What makes you think he'll listen to me?"

"Your dad and Danniels were business partners, right? They both worked together to make Crown City a reality. You're a living link to your father."

"But I'm not him. I'm not a scientist. I'm just a guy who makes statues. Why would he give a shit what I have to say?"

"I give a shit."

"Because I give you mind-blowing orgasms."

"'Mind-blowing'? Don't break your arm jerking yourself off there, Lerxst."

"Why would I jerk myself off when I can get you to do it for me?"

Geddy flushes red. "This conversation went way off the rails."

"So, Lerxst, huh? Where'd you get that one?"

"Y'know, Alerxst..." Geddy prods. Nothing. "Is how you would pronounce your name if you had the world's biggest braces."

Alex's laugh warms Geddy and terrifies him with how much he loves this adorable goofball. "Alright," Alex says, mixing things in a pan over the stovetop, "I guess I could give it a shot. But I want you to come with me."

"Why?"

"'Cause Danniels is scary, dude. I want back-up."

"Look at me, how would I be any help?"

Alex turns his head to give Geddy a once-over. "Well, maybe you could help me argue. Two heads are better than one, 'ey?"

"Really? You'll do it?"

"Yeah, why not? It's worth a shot, right?"

Geddy feels a strange sense of accomplishment here, as though not all is lost. If they pull this off, if Danniels allows residents to leave Crown City, Geddy can eventually convince Alex to join him below in the Old Nation. They can start a life together, free of the Wreckers and the darkness of their pasts.

When Alex slides the pan into the oven and says, "We have forty minutes. Let's make 'em last," Geddy doesn't see the need to argue.


	6. Chapter 6

In the morning, they're off to meet with Danniels. Ray Danniels conducts business out of Mercury Tower, an enormous estate that constitutes its own private island tethered to Xanadu. The name is a bit of a misnomer, given that it's comprised of three towers interconnected with the main mansion, but Geddy's learned enough by now not to question the nomenclature.

Entrance to the towers is restricted by armed guards, police drones, surveillance cameras, and a lever to lower a drawbridge. Alex, being the most affable of the two, approaches the guards with his usual charm. "Good morning, I'm here to see Mr. Danniels."

"Is Master Danniels expecting you?" one of the guards asks.

Master? Oh, jeez.

"No, but—"

"May I ask the purpose of your visit?"

Best keep this vague. "To speak with Mr. Danniels."

"I'm afraid that will not be possible at this time."

"Why don't you tell him Alex Lifeson is here to see him?"

The guards look briefly startled by the name, and Alex just might wield a bit more power than previously thought. Geddy stares down a police drone glaring at him like a hostile space alien. He loses, of course, because machines don't blink.

Guard A, a stout man with a mustache that reminds Geddy of Neil, holds out a hand. "Proof of identity, please." Like he didn't look star-struck a moment ago.

Alex digs through his pockets and produces an ID card. He hands it to the guard, who scrutinizes it far longer than necessary. Guard B even joins in, as though his partner may have missed some fine detail in a master forgery.

Convinced, they hand the card back to Alex. "Mr. Lifeson!" Guard B says with reverence. "Forgive me, I didn't know." He pulls the lever, and the drawbridge begins to lower in sections.

"Please, Mr. Lifeson was my father."

The three of them share a laugh, and Geddy's just standing there wondering if everyone in Crown City is a total dork. Once the drawbridge is lowered, they cross, and Alex holds tightly onto Geddy's hand. "Well, it's gone pretty well so far," Geddy points out. "Maybe this'll actually work."

"Yeah, maybe!" Alex says, sounding optimistic.

Mercury Tower is even more extravagant and gargantuan up close. It's a veritable fortress, looming over visitors in a way that makes Danniels' ego and importance undeniably apparent. Alex pushes through the ornate doors, and they step inside the foyer. Inside, the reception floor is lined with glistening marble, the morning light catching its surface and saturating the room in a golden glow.

Alex smiles at the woman behind the desk. "Hi, Alex Lifeson here to see Mr. Danniels."

She gives him the same look of disbelief as the guards had, requesting proof of identification. Alex is happy to supply his ID card, and the receptionist studies it like fake IDs are a real problem here. She hands the card back and returns his smile. "Master Danniels will see you shortly."

They sit in comfy leather chairs in the waiting area. Geddy looks around the room, surveying the lavish décor. Framed paintings of Crown City and, of course, Danniels himself line the wallpaper-slathered walls. Sturdy marble columns burst from the ground and support the building, though Geddy's pretty sure that's a cosmetic choice rather than an architectural one.

"When you lived in Xanadu, was your place this nice?" Geddy wonders.

"Yeah, actually, it was. It was kinda like the, uh, Wayne Manor from those Batman comics you showed me."

"Really? Your dad had a secret basement with superhero gadgets?"

Alex rolls his eyes with a soft smirk. "'S why I said 'kind of.' Obviously it wasn't this... grandiose, but, y'know, we had style." Hard to believe, Geddy thinks, since the clock tower is all rustic and mismatched décor, none of which strikes him as particularly expensive.

An elevator door dings and slides open. Ray Danniels is just an average-looking guy, but something about him commands respect. Maybe it's the fantastic three-piece suit he's sporting, his salt-and-pepper beard, or the way his shoes are polished enough to blind anyone who looks directly at them. He approaches Alex and shakes his hand as if he's been searching for it all his life. "Alex Lifeson, what an absolute pleasure to see you!"

Alex makes an 'aw-shucks' face. "Yeah, you too. I hope you don't mind, I brought my friend Geddy along."

Danniels shakes Geddy's hand, and, Christ, this guy could afford to switch to decaf. His hand feels like an old, unoiled baseball glove. "Nice to meet you, Geddy. Which district are you from?"

"Xanadu." Geddy hopes this won't come back to bite him in the ass later.

"The pride of Crown City! You and Alex must have a lot in common."

"We do," Alex supplies. "We actually have some ideas we were hoping we could bounce off you, y'know, see what you think."

"Well, I'm all ears. Let's go up to my office and talk things out." Danniels leads them into the elevator and presses a button. The steely silver doors slide closed, and the lift begins its slow ascent. The back of the elevator is made of rounded glass so riders can watch their climb into the clouds. Geddy stays close to the doors.

"So, Alex—can I call you Alex?—how's Life Tower working out for you?" Danniels asks. "Must be nice living amongst all that bustling activity."

"Actually, I don't get out much," Alex admits with a chuckle. "But Geddy's changing that."

Geddy offers up an awkward smile when Danniels looks at him.

"Don't get too wrapped up in your work, son," Danniels warns Alex. "Your father was a brilliant man, but I wouldn't advise following in his footsteps."

Alex nods and glances off, refusing to meet Geddy's concerned gaze.

The elevator opens at the mouth of Danniel's office. The room is covered in deep reds and warm leather tones. Behind the cherry mahogany desk is another window peering out at the floating city. The chairs are leather with gold buttons. There's a bucket on Danniel's desk with a wine bottle sticking out of it, and Danniels pops open the bottle and pours himself a glass. "Would you care for a drink?"

"I never turn down wine," Geddy says. He manages to make out the words 'Victor Valley' on the label, and, wow, that's some primo stuff.

Alex shrugs. "Yeah, why not?"

After the drinks are poured, Danniels sits in his chair and says, "So tell me, boys, what ideas did you come up with?"

Alex opens his mouth, closes it. "Um, Ged, d'you wanna...?"

Shit, Geddy was hoping Alex would do most of the talking, but since this was his idea he should probably take the floor. "Yeah, um, we were thinking, as we often do, and although I am honored, in a weird way, that you created the immigration laws as a sort of"—he searches for the word—" _in memoriam_ for what happened to my parents—"

Danniels gasps. "You're the Weinrib boy? I had no idea. My condolences."

"Um, thanks..." Geddy never got entirely comfortable with the perverted sense of fame his family tragedy earned him. "But that's my point. I think the laws dictating who can come in and out of Crown City are rather... reactionary at best and discriminatory at worst. You could foster a lot more growth and commerce by repealing those laws."

Danniels leans back in his chair and studies Geddy for a moment. Then his gaze flicks to Alex. "Alex, you agree with this?"

"Well, yes. Geddy and I both came from immigrant families—well, double immigrants, if you count their move to Crown City—and, for example, if my father hadn't been able to enter the Old Nation, you probably wouldn't have a city now."

"I'm not discouraging immigration. I'm trying to keep criminals and riff-raff out of our city. Surely you can understand that. Even the Old Nation had its standards," Danniels says, and Geddy picks up on the past tense there.

"What measure is a criminal?" Geddy posits. "Your laws discount anyone with a criminal offense. A man who gets caught stealing food to feed his family and a man who enjoys taking the lives of others are hardly the same. One is a victim of circumstance. The Old Nation judged crimes with varying degrees."

"But we are not the Old Nation. Perhaps your idea has merit in theory, but consider this: recently some of my private belongings were stolen. This happened with my 'reactionary' laws in place. Imagine how much more crime would happen here if I let any Tom, Dick, and Harry into our fine city."

Geddy takes a drink, because he needs a bit of alcohol to handle this. Apparently his little theft earlier in the week did not go unnoticed. "You have a literacy test. Isn't that a bit elitist?"

"What is Crown City but another ark for another time?"

 _Wow_. "What about letting people out? You might not understand why someone would want to leave, but giving them the option couldn't bring too much harm, right?"

Danniels smiles as though privy to a secret. "That one isn't on me. Alex, your father brought that law about."

Alex blinks in surprise. "I thought he didn't get involved with politics."

"Not often, but I discussed the immigration laws with him, because Crown City was his city, too. He had a few additions I saw sense in."

"Which are?"

"Forbidding exit, and the prohibition of materials from the Sodom Below."

"Excuse me?"

Danniels turns in his chair to focus on Alex. "Your father viewed the Old Nation and the rest of the world with contempt, describing it as 'the Sodom Below.' He was of the opinion that their media—books, television, movies, music, etcetera—was poisoning the minds of the people. And I'm not entirely convinced he was wrong."

 _So why did you have a lockbox filled with books from the Old Nation_? Geddy wonders.

"My dad banned all that stuff?" Alex says, sounding lost. His brow creases in confusion, and Geddy wants to comfort him, but there's more pressing matters at hand.

"So he came up with it. You passed it. You can just as easily repeal it."

"And why would I do that? Crown City's own creative minds are thriving."

"Except they're not," Alex cuts in. "You and my father banned arts and expression from the Old Nation, but you don't respect the ones made here. You treat art like a commodity, like it doesn't come from a person. Most of the art here is soulless because it's done for the government. It's like you're scared of any form of art with integrity."

"I'm a businessman. You're an artist. Our intentions will always be at cross-purposes, so I fear we're going to be at an impasse indefinitely on this matter," Danniels says.

So it all circles back to money, then. Geddy feels like he should be surprised, but he isn't. He's actually very curious why Danniels had those books from the Old Nation in his lockbox. But he can't even tiptoe around the question without sounding suspicious, and the last thing he needs is to be arrested. Or for Alex to know he's a thief.

Geddy sighs and finishes his wine before standing up. "Well, then, I guess we'll be going."

"We will?" Alex sputters.

"Yeah, I mean, obviously there's no convincing him."

"Really?" Alex downs his own glass. "I feel like we kinda gave up too easily."

"Don't you know the old expression about a fool and his money?"

Danniels huffs an angry breath. "I'm sorry we couldn't come to a mutually beneficial agreement," he says, rising from his desk. "But, Geddy, consider this from my point of view. The dissatisfaction of a few pales before the greater good."

Wrong answer. "Ah, that elusive greater good can be used to justify so much. But I guess the huge pile of money in your ivory tower helps you sleep at night." Geddy moves for the elevator and presses the button.

"Um, thank you for meeting with us, Mr. Danniels," Alex says, apologizing for his boyfriend's glaring lack of fucks to give. "Hopefully next time we speak, things won't be so... divisive."

"Best of luck to you," Danniels says before they slip inside the elevator.

* * *

"Danniels is a lying sack of shit," Geddy seethes as he and Alex walk through Xanadu.

"What makes you think so?"

"I just—I can tell, okay? I have sort of a sixth sense for lying douchebags." Which doesn't explain how John slipped under the radar all these years.

"So what's he lying about?"

Geddy doesn't know how to tell Alex about the books without revealing something deeper about himself. "Okay, I don't know _exactly_. But maybe he's just a shady fucker."

"You're a little shady," Alex points out. "I mean, you broke into my house, and I still don't know what you actually do."

Geddy stares at Alex for a moment and wonders if honesty will benefit him here. But he doubts Alex could understand why Geddy steals for a living, why Geddy made the deal that locked him into this life in the first place. "Who even lives in a clock tower? I think the breaking-and-entering thing is totally exaggerated, and, besides, you left the door unlocked. Any bozo could just walk right in."

"Any bozo did," Alex says with a flirty smile. "But if Danniels is lying, why? And what about?"

"He could have been lying about your father. He probably didn't want to come across as the kind of guy who condones censorship, so blame it on someone who's not around to defend himself."

Alex shakes his head. "That... actually sounds like something my dad would do, though."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, he... He got really paranoid," Alex says, hugging himself like he's cold. "He always was, kinda, but the last six years of his life were the worst of it."

"Is that why he took you out of school?"

Alex nods. "He didn't want my mind 'poisoned.' I couldn't have any contact with my friends. I wasn't allowed to leave the tower without him. I sorta got used to it after a while. But..." He shakes his head. "Never mind."

"You can tell me anything," Geddy reminds him. "If you want, I mean."

"It's better if I don't. You'll think I'm a dick."

"No way." Geddy grasps Alex's hand in his own. "There's nothing you could say that would make me think you're a dick."

Alex glances off but doesn't let go of Geddy's hand. "There were times when... I sort of wished something would happen to him. And then something did."

So that's why Alex didn't immediately dismiss Geddy's guilt and sense of culpability in his own parents' murders.

"I never—I was a teenager, dude. I wasn't thinking straight, y'know?" Alex says, like Geddy might be judging him for the admission. "I just wanted to have friends and a normal life. But it wasn't his fault. He was sick, and I should've helped him, but I didn't."

They sit on a park bench near a fountain. Alex relaxes against the bench and sort of cuddles into Geddy. They watch the fountain water dance around Xanadu's clockwork angel. "The last few months of my dad's life," Alex murmurs, "he had this delusion about the Clock Man. He said he heard a man whispering 'tick tock tick tock' and sometimes he could see him. I thought he was just nuts. We lived in a clock tower; it'd be weird not to hear ticking. But maybe... Maybe that's what drove him over the edge."

"It's not your fault, Alex," Geddy says. "There was nothing you could do."

Alex huffs an amused sound. "You don't even believe that about yourself."

"Well, I said 'maybe,' so I think that gives me a bit of wiggle room."

"If you want me to buy the bullshit you're selling, you ought'a at least believe in it a little."

"I do. I think there are some instances where nothing you do really makes a difference. This is one of them."

Alex looks distraught, his eyes wide and pleading. "Promise me... if I become like him, if I lose who I am..." He brings Geddy's hand closer, and Geddy thinks he's going to lift it to his cheek, but his thumb holds against the fluttering pulse in Alex's neck, fingers slightly curved around his throat. The certainty and conviction in Alex's eyes seem to indicate a depth of damage Geddy doesn't fully comprehend, and for a moment he wonders what he's signed up for by falling in love with this man.

"It won't come to that," Geddy says, drawing his hand away. "That's my promise."

"You don't know."

"Neither do you."

Alex looks momentarily hopeful, but there's a sad sense of resignation that Geddy wants to spend the rest of his life casting out.

They sit there for a while in a comfortable silence, watching the water dance around the fountain. Alex bunches a hand in Geddy's sweater. "You live here, right? In Xanadu, I mean. Are you ever gonna bring me back to your place? I've almost forgotten what it's like to be in a real house."

Geddy panics internally for a handful of seconds. "It's really... cluttered. And messy. You'd hate it."

"You've seen where I live. Not exactly the shining example of organization."

"Yeah, but..." Shit, he really should have planned this out better. Or maybe he did and his brain's blanking under pressure. Wouldn't be the first time. "I just..."

"You don't trust me? I get it if you don't. I live in a clock tower and talk to statues. And I might be crazy." Alex chuckles, but there's an edge of hysteria to it. "You probably shouldn't trust me."

"No, no, it's not—Of course I trust you!" It rings insincere and full of shit. Since Alex exposed a secret, Geddy should even up the playing field and offer something in return. "I don't actually live here," he mumbles, but Alex is so close he doesn't have any trouble hearing him. "I live in Cygnus."

"Were you trying to impress me by saying you lived here?" Alex asks with a laugh.

"Well, yeah."

"Why?" Like he's got no idea why Geddy would ever want to impress him.

""Cause I thought you were cute. And then you said you're the founder's son, and I figured you wouldn't wanna hang out with me if I wasn't high-class."

"Do I really come off like such an asshole?" Alex wonders, genuinely curious.

"It's not so much you being an asshole and more of me not really having anything to offer."

"Well, you're cute, too. That's something."

"I've always thought I was weird-looking. Never in a million years would I have imagined someone who looks like you would go out with someone who looks like me."

"Maybe I get off on weird-looking guys."

"Sometimes literally."

Alex slugs him in the shoulder. "You love it."

"I love _you_." Geddy feels himself blushing as the words hang in the air and solidify into something real.

Alex looks at him, his features pulled into a gaze of adoration and disbelief, and Geddy always feels a little intoxicated when Alex does that. "I love you, too."

When they get back to the tower, Geddy expects Alex to start making dinner, but instead he digs through his closet, pushing aside clothes and boxes and lugging out a heavy wooden chest. "My dad always had this locked up," he says, holding up the thick metal padlock. "I just stored it away 'cause I didn't wanna... I felt like if I looked inside it, it'd mean he was really gone, y'know?"

Geddy nods, sitting on the floor beside him.

"But after what Danniels said, maybe Dad was keeping more secrets from me." Alex examines the lock again, then looks around the room. "Now I just have to figure out where he would'a kept the key."

"Or you could just pick the lock."

"Yeah, but I don't know how—"

Geddy withdraws a lockpick from his shoulder bag.

Alex stares at him. "Why do you have that?"

"My landlord's a dick and sometimes changes the locks on my apartment."

Alex frowns like he senses bullshit but doesn't know exactly how to call Geddy on it. Geddy takes Alex's silence as permission to ease the pick into the keyhole. Gently, he works the lock open.

Alex lifts the lid and peers inside. There are two stacks of papers, frayed journals and newspapers. The other half of the trunk is filled with assorted items. Geddy doesn't want to snoop, so he sits back against the bed, his legs splayed like a kid with a new pack of baseball cards, and waits for Alex to pull something out.

The first couple of items Alex takes out are a miniature clockwork angel and a small canvas painting. "Oh, wow, he kept these?" Alex says with a fond chuckle. "I made these in art class at school. The angel was my first attempt at actually making one—obviously not to scale."

Geddy's more interested in the painting. The image on the canvas looks like a typical child's artwork. None of Alex's creepy motifs here. Just sunny colors and cartoony, smiling faces. "How old were you when you painted that?"

Alex turns the painting over to read the inscription on the back. "Seventh grade... So I was thirteen, I think."

Geddy wonders at what point Alex's artwork evolved into the unsettling images he paints today or if the style is merely symptomatic of his grief.

Alex digs around in the trunk, producing more of his own childhood artwork and projects. Then he leafs through the journals. Most of them contain scientific gibberish neither Alex nor Geddy can decipher. There are schematic sketches to supplement some of the text. "He must have been researching something..." Alex murmurs.

Geddy tries to read the text, but they're not even words. "I think it's in some sort of code."

Alex flips through the rest of the pages. Most of them are blank. "Maybe he started coding his research so no one could decipher it if they stole it."

"Who would steal it? Danniels?"

"I don't know," Alex says with a shrug. He pulls out a leather photo album. The binding makes a cracking noise as he opens it. Inside is an assortment of black-and-white photographs of Alex's parents. Lots of smiles, seemingly happy smiles. Some of the pictures include baby Alex, and his mother doesn't look like the kind of person who would suddenly decide she didn't want her child.

Alex stares at the pictures with a sense of loss, as though mourning the mother he never knew. Looking at these photographs, at the family that once was and is now no more, fills Geddy with a deep pang of sadness.

"Do you think she would be proud of me?" Alex swallows back a lump in his throat.

Geddy curls an arm around Alex's shoulders and pulls him close. "You're amazing. Of course she'd be proud of you."

Alex turns the next few pages in the album. The photos stop featuring Alex's parents and focus more on Alex himself as he ages. Then there's no more pictures. He sets the photo album to the side and pulls out a stack of papers. Most of the papers are documents from both the Old Nation and Crown City. A newspaper clipping flutters out of the stack. Alex grabs it before it hits the ground and takes a closer look. He gasps out loud, slaps a hand over his mouth.

"What?" Geddy strains to look at the clipping. It's a grainy, black-and-white wedding photo with a small blurb underneath. "Is that your parents' wedding announcement?"

"No, but that's my mom," Alex says with unshakeable conviction. "She's supposed to be dead—What—" He turns the clipping over, searching for a year. "1959? But my dad told me she died when I was two."

"Are we absolutely sure it's her?"

Alex picks up the album again and opens it up. He places the clipping side-by-side with a photograph of his mother holding him as a baby. "What do you think? It's a six, maybe seven year gap, but she was young. She wouldn't have aged too drastically. And see..." He takes the photo out of the album and turns it over to reveal writing on the other side. "'Milka and Alex, 1953.'" He points to the article. "She has the same name. So unless this is a doppelganger with the exact same name and face as my mother..."

The pieces are clicking together in Geddy's head, and he does not like the picture they're forming. "Yeah, I guess it wouldn't make sense for him to have this otherwise. Unless... did he have any siblings?"

Alex shakes his head, still in sort of a daze. His back is rod-straight, but his breath comes out in hitches. "He lied to me. My mom's been alive this whole time... But why? Why isn't she here? Why did she marry this other guy?" He gasps a choked sound. "Oh God, that's why he didn't want me to leave! There wouldn't be a grave to visit. I would've found out..."

"Maybe—maybe she cheated on your dad with this guy. Your dad found out, got pissed off, and took you to Crown City. Did he ever explicitly tell you she died or did he talk in hyperbole like 'she's dead to me'?"

Alex shakes his head again. "No, no, he was—he was pretty blunt about it. He said she died in an accident. And that she didn't want me anyway, so I shouldn't feel bad that I don't have a mother anymore." Tears are streaming down Alex's face now. "But that was a lie, too, wasn't it? So why isn't she here now? Why didn't she come find me?"

Geddy struggles to formulate a halfway-decent answer. "Maybe she couldn't. If your dad arranged things to keep you in here, maybe he had something in place to keep her out."

"But why? He loved her, right?" Alex says, blinking teary eyes at the photo album. "Even if he didn't, she's still my mom."

"He might have worried she would take you away."

Alex sucks in a deep breath, raking his fingers through his hair. "If he hated her, why would he have this?" He picks up the newspaper clipping and studies it again, as though it might have changed since the last time he looked.

"I doubt he hated her. Maybe he wanted to make sure she was taken care of."

Alex is shaking slightly as he wipes his wet face with the floppy sleeves of his sweater. After a moment, he swallows and says, "I have to find her. It says they got married in Toronto, so they live in the Old Nation. I've got two names to look for—hers and his—and if she doesn't want me now, well, we'll see what happens."

Geddy can't bring himself to say no. If it were him, if he suddenly had a second chance with his own mother, he'd take it in a heartbeat, no matter the odds.

Alex looks at Geddy. "Your friend Neil... He knows people, right? Do you think he'd know someone who could sneak me out?"

"He just got jumped by guys who were looking for his sources, so he's probably gonna be tight-lipped for a while."

"But he'll tell you, right?"

"Actually, he's kinda mad at me right now."

Alex opens his mouth like he wants to ask what Geddy's done to piss Neil off, but he thinks the wiser of it and says, "Doesn't matter. I'll find a way."

"If you leave, you won't be able to come back," Geddy reminds him.

"I know, but... I don't think I wanna be here anymore, living in this city built on my dad's lies. I just wanna go... and be somewhere"—he pauses—"away from all this. You wanna leave, too, right? We could go down there and start our lives over."

Geddy's brain swirls dizzily with the possibilities. "Okay, look, I'm not one to look a proverbial gift horse in the mouth, but, like, two days ago you were very keen on staying here."

"That was before I knew I had a mom. Before I knew my dad lied to me my entire life."

"What if you change your mind again? What if you don't like it there? What if you wake up one day and look at me and think 'oh God, what have I done?'"

"Well, tough shit for me, then. I thought you wanted us to leave together."

"I know, I know, I just—I instinctually mistrust any situation that seems to be working out too easily. All of this seems too good to be true."

"Well, it's not," Alex says, twining his fingers with Geddy's own. "I wanna go. I wanna find my mom."

"Then we'll go. We'll find a way out."

Alex leans against Geddy's shoulder and sighs a trembling breath. A few seconds of silence pass by. "Why do you really have that lockpick?"

Geddy blinks. "I told you it's for my apartment—"

"And I'm pretty sure that's bullshit. After all the lies my dad told me, you can't hide stuff from me, too. The only way we can be together is if I can trust you."

Alex deserves the truth. Maybe he won't understand Geddy's motivations, but he can't hear it from anyone else. Geddy nods and holds him closer, as though fearing he might pull away. "You're right. I want you to trust me, so... no more lies. There's some things I should tell you. The reason I know Danniels is lying is because I stole his lockbox. I work as a thief for the Wreckers. They're a, uh, underground group of revolutionaries. I owe them a debt after hiring them to kill the man who killed my parents."

The tears are still streaming down Alex's face, but he's not crying anymore. No sobs. No hitching.

"Hiring them was a mistake. I know that now," Geddy continues. "But that's not who I am. It's just what I do. But I totally get if you don't wanna be with me anymore. I shouldn't have lied to you." He's not even going to quantify that with an excuse.

Alex is quiet for a long while, but he doesn't move away or give any sort of indication that he doesn't want Geddy here with him. But Geddy could really use some reassurance right now. "Tell me what you're thinking," he says, lightly squeezing Alex's hand.

"I'm thinking... you've already stolen something from me."

"Oh my God."

"My heart."

Geddy lets out a long groan and says, "I'm leaving you."

Alex laughs.

"So you're okay with this? You still want..."

"I don't approve, but... You could've chosen not to tell me, but you feel bad about lying and keeping secrets because you're a good person." Alex goes quiet again, then: "What was in Danniels' lockbox?"

"A bunch of books from the Old Nation. I don't remember which ones, but I know Neil has some of them."

"Why would he have those?"

"Maybe he doesn't believe in your father's rules as staunchly as he wants us to think. But I know his primary motivation for keeping that law in place is the money he earns off Crown City commerce. He gets ten percent of every transaction, and if Crown City has the monopoly on books and TV and music and stuff, Danniels is making boat-loads of cash."

"If he came out and said it was 'cause of the money, he'd look like an asshole," Alex points out.

"So he's gotta dress it up as a morally righteous crusade."

"Do you think he knows? About my mom, I mean. He was close with my dad. Maybe they talked about her."

"I think the better question is: if he does, would he tell you?"

Alex shrugs, silent as they sit there amongst uncovered secrets and memories. "Will you stay?" he asks, his voice wrecked and vulnerable. "I really don't wanna be alone tonight."

Geddy can't think of any place he'd rather be than right here.


	7. Chapter 7

After Geddy leaves around noon, Alex pays Danniels another visit. The same two guards greet him at Mercury Tower. Alex gives them a friendly smile, and they wave him right through, lowering the drawbridge without question. When Alex was growing up in Crown City, he marveled at the magnificence of Mercury Tower, imagining the luxurious lives lived behind its walls. He knows better now, of course, having seen first-hand how the rich live. It may be pretty, but pretty doesn't always mean happy.

When Alex gets inside, the receptionist cheerily sends him up to Danniels' office. Danniels is sitting at his desk when Alex arrives. He does, however, look relieved when the elevator slides open to reveal Alex is unaccompanied.

"Alex, you have more ideas for me?"

Alex shakes his head and drops into the smooth leather chair opposite Danniels' desk. "Not this time. I have some questions about my father I hope you can answer."

Danniels nods and leans in, folding his hands on top of the desk. "Of course. I'll do my best."

"Do you know why he lied about my mother being dead?"

Danniels' body jolts like he's been zapped with a cattle prod. "That's a pretty serious accusation."

Alex waits him out. Silence makes people uncomfortable, so more often than not they'll try to fill it with words.

"He told you she died?" Danniels says, playing into Alex's strategy. "My God. He never spoke of her death with me. I just assumed..."

"You assumed she was alive?"

Danniels looks uncertain how to handle this. His eyes dart from place to place, and Alex sits back in silence. Let him dig his own grave with explanations. "Alex, you have to understand. Nenad was a brilliant man, but he was... not well. Crown City was a floating paradise he claimed to have seen in a vision. I took a great deal of interest in his research and supplied him with engineers, workmen, and mechanics. Your father feared the inevitable death of humanity in a war ending in nuclear fire. He had seen too many countries at war with each other, too much dissention. That's why Crown City seceded from the Old Nation and exists independently.

"Even more than the inevitability of nuclear war, Nenad feared losing you. He believed your mother would come to Crown City and steal you away from him, so he prohibited her from entering the city. If she arrived in the Welcome Center, she would be turned away and refused entry."

Alex sucks in a shaky breath. His mother could have been trying to find him all this time. His eyes sting with the prickle of tears.

"He believed Crown City would only prosper as long as his bloodline existed inside of it. His original plan was for you to succeed me and govern Crown City, but he discovered your artistic abilities and decided you could better serve the city that way."

"Is that why he didn't want me leaving?"

Danniels tilts his head back and forth. Maybe yes, maybe no. "Partly. But he couldn't understand why someone would want to return to the Sodom Below. This, he thought, is paradise."

"Paradise, prison, tomato, to-mah-to."

"I don't know if I would agree with that, but to each his own."

Something about Danniels' story doesn't make sense. Why would Alex's father want to nuture his son's artistic talent when art isn't viewed with the same respect that science and architecture are? Maybe Nenad's paranoia metastasized like a tumor; he may have seen Alex's creative mind as an excuse to keep him locked away under the guise of nurturing those abilities while also making him servile.

Alex swallows the lump in his throat. "Did you know her? My mom, I mean."

"We met a few times," Danniels says. "I never spoke at length with her, but she seemed nice enough. She was attending school to be a nurse. When I would visit your father, she used to make us butterscotch cider with bourbon."

Alex wonders briefly if his kitchen-related expertise is genetic. "She got remarried," he says. "In 1959. My dad saved this newspaper clipping about the wedding. The guy's a doctor."

Danniels nods as though that's just about what he expected to hear. "Good for her."

The room falls silent. Light seeps through the windows as the island bobs buoyantly in the clouds. Alex keeps his gaze on Danniels. He knows the answer he's going to get, but that doesn't stop him. "I wanna find her. I want—I wanna go to the Old Nation and see her. Maybe I could bring her here."

Danniels loses a bit of color, speaking slowly. "I'm not sure betraying your father's wishes is a good idea. There's no point in chasing the past, son. Crown City is the future. You have a good life here. She's gotten remarried and moved on." A point that keeps irritating Alex like a grain of sand in the retina. "You should do the same."

Danniels' callous dismissal brings forth a new tightness in Alex's throat, fresh tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Because this is his mother they're talking about; how is he supposed to just _forget_ about her? But beyond his anguish there's a low hum of suspicion brewing inside of him. Danniels isn't a neutral party. He's got a vested interest in keeping Alex in Crown City—either as a successor or maintaining Nenad's legacy. Of course he would try to persuade Alex to stay, maybe even twist facts to suit his purpose.

So what's going on here? Is this wise advice from an elder or subtle manipulation?

"I fear we're going to be at an impasse indefinitely on this matter," Alex says, throwing Danniels' earlier words back in his face. He vanishes inside the elevator before Danniels can say more.

* * *

Geddy drops by the library at five o'clock while Neil's closing up. "I'm still mad at you," Neil says. His bruises have faded into sickly greens and yellows. "What are you even doing here?"

Geddy steps inbetween bookshelves to prevent Neil's escape from this conversation. "We need to talk."

"No, we don't. For safety's sake we probably shouldn't even look at each other for a month." Neil turns to leave, but Geddy stops him.

"It's about The Omega Concern."

Neil freezes, exhales a deep sigh, and turns back to face Geddy. His gaze darts around the room, even though they're the only two people inside. "You have a breakthrough?"

"I think we need to put our heads together and come up with one real quick."

"What do you know?"

"Nothing, really, but we ought to make a move sooner rather than later."

Neil nods and says, "Alright, let's talk."

They congregate at the Presto Café nearby, because Neil has a slight obsession with their stuffed bread braid, which he orders immediately. "So what's the story?" Neil asks once the food arrives. "Something to do with Lifeson, I presume?"

"I don't think you'll be too hung up on the details—"

"Excuse you. Details are everything." Neil takes a bite. "Devil's in 'em. Or is that God? I'm always getting those two mixed up."

"That's not what I meant. It's just a personal thing for him, and I can't see you being too interested in that, is all."

"Once again, you're wrong."

Geddy wonders how to explain. "Alex's father told him his mother was dead. Up until last night, he believed it. But she's alive, and she lives in the Old Nation."

"Where's the proof?"

"His father kept a newspaper clipping announcing her new marriage back in '59."

Neil wipes his greasy hands on a napkin. "And Lifeson's just now finding it?"

"It was kept in a locked chest he just found the key to," Geddy lies.

"So you want me to help your boyfriend jump ship?" Neil Peart really does have a way with words. A way of making everything sound like the most inane idea ever uttered by a human being.

"I was thinking we'd both come along. It's not like we weren't planning on it eventually."

"The keyword there is 'plan,' Ged. You can't improvise something like this. It takes coordinated effort, and..."

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes."

"I understand that, but..." Neil glances around the café to ensure his next words belong only to the two of them. "Some associates of mine are working on something big."

"Care to share?"

"How do you think people perform maintenance on the Sky-Lines? They've got to have a way to hold on, right?"

"Yeah, they use some sort of hook, right?"

Neil snaps his fingers. "Bingo. That device was created by Dionysus Manufacturing, which means the patent and blueprints exist in City Hall. One of my associates happens to have access to those records. Another associate is an inventor, and she's managed to put together a couple of working prototypes. The idea is to assemble a large enough group that could ride the Sky-Line using these hooks and hijack a cargo barge while it's in the air. There's less security when the ship's airborne than there is when it's on the ground. Since the cargo barges don't use the Sky-Lines, we should be able to jump onto one and commandeer it."

The idea sounds simple in its premise, yet damn near impossible to execute. "What about the security onboard the craft? They're not just going to let us take over the thing."

"We'll have to throw them off the ship," Neil says, taking another bite of bread. "Hopefully we can do it without too many injuries on either side. We just wanna leave. We don't wanna hurt anybody."

"Wouldn't it be easier to build a ship of our own?" Geddy wonders.

"And where would we build the damn thing? We don't have unrestricted access to a building that big. Acquiring the materials needed would be a nightmare, especially the sheer size of them. That would definitely raise a few red flags. You're already a criminal, Ged. What's one last hurrah before you follow the straight and narrow?"

Geddy feels oddly wounded by that 'criminal' comment. "That's an awfully black-and-white view of it."

"No, it isn't. This isn't a Robin Hood situation. You're following orders from a radical organization whose alliances you knew from the start. There's no nobility in what you do," Neil says simply.

Sometimes conversations with Neil feel like taking punches. "Speaking of radical organizations... You were right."

"About?"

"They won't let me out," Geddy says in a low voice. "The only way is to leave Crown City. Or die, but I'm not really keen on that one."

Neil pulls off another piece of bread. "And you're confident they won't come after you?"

"Why would they? They don't actually want Crown City to change. They just want something to rebel against. Besides, the Old Nation won't interfere as long as the Wreckers stay here. My escape really doesn't cost them anything save for an extra pair of hands." Geddy veers back to the more pertinent topic. "How big of a group would we need?"

"Five or six, to combat the crew on the cargo barge. We could find a smaller one and not have too much of a problem there. Most crew members aren't armed, either."

"Isn't this a bit extreme?"

"I guess you don't want your boyfriend to have a touching reunion with dear Ma-ma," Neil says, shrugging and taking another bite. "Desperate times, desperate measures."

"I don't wanna hurt anyone," Geddy says, sinking a bit in his chair.

"And you probably won't have to. Crown City is ridiculously unprepared for something like this, because their gun laws lull them into a false sense of security." Only police officers are authorized to own and carry firearms, and it's a toss-up whether this has prevented a bulk of crime or simply made criminals more creative. "No one's ever tried this before, not with this kind of organization. Not with the right tools. They won't see it coming."

The tease of escape makes Geddy shiver, goosebumps prickling over his skin. "What if we get caught?"

"Then we'd be in some pretty serious shit. So don't get caught," Neil says, like it's that easy.

"When do we start?"

"I'll have to speak with Charlene. If she doesn't think the Air-Hooks are ready, then we'll have to wait for her to tweak them to her liking. These are vital components to the plan, so if there's one area where you don't want to cut corners, it's the Air-Hooks."

"You'll let me know when everything's ready?"

"Yeah. I guess it'll be harder to get a hold of you now that you're spending all your time with Lifeson."

Geddy sighs. "Just call him Alex like a normal person would."

"First-name basis is reserved for friends only." Neil studies Geddy's face. "You really like him, don't you?"

"I've been told it's obvious."

"Just a little." Neil peels off another piece of bread and chews over his next question. "Are we sure reuniting these two is the best course of action? There may be a good reason why his dad told him she was dead."

"Reason being he was mentally ill. He wasn't thinking clearly."

"Why, then, wouldn't she have tried to find him? What kind of mother would abandon her child like that?"

"He wasn't abandoned," Geddy says, choosing his words carefully. "He had his father."

"But she didn't know his father would tell the kid she died. For all she knew, he could have grown up believing his mother didn't love him."

"That's... partially true. His dad told him his mother didn't want him, and that she died in an accident. Maybe there's a reason his father didn't want Alex trying to find her."

"Exactly my point. You keep trying to paint her in a good light. It blinds you, I think."

"It's possible the parents had a falling-out. Maybe Alex's dad found out his wife was messing around with this other guy. So he leaves and takes Alex to Crown City."

"Again, I ask: why wouldn't this woman come here and try to find her son?"

"Maybe she _couldn't_. What if he prevented her from getting into the city?" Geddy speaks even as the ideas are still forming. "So she gets here, finds out from the guards at the Welcome Center that she's not allowed inside. She figures he's still mad at her—thinks maybe he's gotten remarried—and weighs that against her own desires. Would it be fair to take Alex away from what may very well be a happy home? Alex was two at the time, so it's possible he wouldn't even remember any of this. Any woman could step in and assume the role of his mother. If she managed to sneak in and steal Alex, she knew she'd have to go on the run. What kind of life is that for a kid?"

Neil nods thoughtfully. "That's possible. It's also possible that his mother isn't this wonderful, self-sacrificing person you're making her out to be."

Geddy wonders about that, if he's leading Alex into something potentially harmful. Finding his mother is the only motivation Alex has for leaving Crown City. If that turns out to be a bust, will he resent Geddy for being "stuck" in the Old Nation?

"I get that you're in love and you wanna help him," Neil says, "but Alex doesn't strike me as the kind of person who's tough enough to handle this if it goes sideways."

"Maybe, maybe not. But that's not really my decision, is it?"

"No, absolutely not. But I think it's something you should be prepared for. I guess the real question is, can _you_ handle it?"

"Yeah. I think so," Geddy says, his throat dry.

* * *

John's waiting for Geddy that night on the stoop of La Villa Strangiato, smoking a cigarette and looking at home here in the slums of Cygnus. "How'd things go with Lifeson?" he says, and Geddy knows he's not asking if they made it to third base.

Geddy loiters near him on the steps, unwilling to go inside just yet. "Well, we got a meeting with Danniels..."

"'We'?"

"Yeah, I went along with him. But Danniels isn't interested in changing things. He made it clear that the contraband law brings in too much revenue for him to ever consider lifting it. And as for the immigration thing..." Geddy's carefully leaving out the part about his thievery prickling at Danniels' fears. "Yeah, he's not lifting that one either."

John blows a plume of smoke into the air. "So Lifeson's useless, then?"

"I wouldn't say that," Geddy argues with offense. "He may not have any pull on these particular issues, but Danniels did seem to genuinely like him and respect his father's legacy."

Somewhere in the distance, glass explodes into pieces, and a man and a woman exchange heated words. Geddy turns his attention back to John.

John takes a long drag off his cigarette, studying Geddy for a moment that seems to go on forever. Geddy grows nervous under the scrutiny. John stubs the cigarette out with the toe of his boot. "Good to know. See ya around, Geddy," he says as he walks away.

* * *

Someone's shaking him, a female voice shouting, "Geddy, wake up! C'mon!" Geddy pries open his eyelids and sees Nancy at his bedside with a despaired look on her face. Her cheeks are splotchy and wet, as though she's been crying.

Geddy sits up and rubs his eyes, blinking through the early morning light assaulting his vision. "What? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Nancy sniffles and throws her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Geddy isn't sure what exactly is happening here. When Nancy pulls away, she takes his face in her hands. "They sent me here to kill you," she says through hitching breaths.

"Who?"

"The Wreckers."

"Oh, right." Geddy's a little slow in the morning.

"But I can't do it," Nancy says, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. "You're my friend."

"Please don't tell me you're in love with me."

She laughs, hysteria intermingled with joy. "God, you're just so—You don't deserve this, Geddy. None of this is fair."

"Why do they want me dead?" Geddy asks. "I couldn't get Alex to convince Danniels to change the laws, but I don't think that's worth killing me over. Just the other day, John was trying to get me promoted."

Nancy shakes her head. She swallows away something and speaks again. "You're just collateral damage. Their real target is Alex. But they know if they don't take you out too, you'll destroy them."

A steel hand squeezes Geddy's insides. He can't think straight after this. Geddy rolls out of bed, nearly falling flat on his face as his feet get tangled in the twisted blankets. "Alex, fuck, oh God, tell me he's not—Is he—"

"I don't know," Nancy says, helping Geddy to his feet, but he's already half-hopping, half-stumbling his way to the front door, despite being clad in his pajamas. "It was supposed to go down at the same time, so one of you couldn't warn the other." She throws open his dresser drawer and tosses him the first pair of pants she finds. "Here."

He dresses with the speed of an Olympic champion, rushing out the door while pulling on one of his boots. Nancy follows him down the stairs. "I can't help you with this," she says. "If they find out I didn't do the job, they'll come after me. I'm gonna have to disappear for a while."

They burst out the front doors and into the streets. "Thank you for warning me," Geddy tells her, sprinting by decaying buildings and the occasional homeless guy with long hair and a matted beard. "If I need you—"

"You know where to find me."

He does. Nancy heads in the opposite direction. Geddy keeps moving, crazed now. If this is his fault, if he played an unwitting part in getting Alex killed... What if he's too late? Alex could already be dead— No, Geddy can't think about that right now. He can't afford to slow down, even for the length of a heartbeat.

He scrambles onto the Sky-Line, impatience jittering throughout his body. The train is in no such hurry. It moves at its normal speed, but the world feels like it's been submerged in morphine-infused molasses. Every second is precious. Panic sets in with a dizzying speed, and Geddy's mind unwillingly conjures up horrifying scenarios of what might be happening to Alex while he's pissing away time on this train.

Would they torture him, dragging things out and giving Geddy enough time to burst in and save him? Or would they execute him with simple, cold precision, slitting his throat or putting a bullet through his skull? Or would they hang him with the chains in his own tower, getting away with murder by mimicing his father's suicide?

No, the Wreckers are smart and methodical. This isn't just a murder—it's an assassination. Alex, despite his hermit-like lifestyle and low profile, is still an important figure to Crown City. By killing Alex, the Wreckers are sending a message.

The train eases to a stop at Chronos Square, and Geddy's squeezing through the doors as they open. Can't stop now. If Geddy slows down, Alex dies. It's as simple as that. His lungs feel like they're going to burst, but he keeps going, his feet pounding the cobblestone. He can see the clock tower in the distance. It doesn't appear to be destroyed or on fire, but that's not as comforting at Geddy thought it might be.

He nearly trips up the stairs leading to the courtyard where the clock tower sits. Geddy rights himself and hones in on the tower. He pounds his fists on the door. "Alex! Alex! Open up, c'mon!" He tries to open the door himself, but it's locked. Would Alex have locked it himself, or did the Wreckers do it, and Alex is dead or being tortured behind this door?

Geddy's heart rams into his throat, and he pounds on the door, praying to a God he's not sure he believes in anymore. He'll have to break his way inside. But how? Geddy looks around the tranquil garden surrounding him. There's nothing here he could use as a battering ram or a pry bar. If he had his tools he could pick the lock, but that wouldn't help if the heavy bar is down on the other side.

Geddy hears noise from inside the tower. Then the door is opening, and Alex is standing there in his pajamas, his eyes swollen with sleep and looking a little perturbed by the disturbance. "Spageddy, what the hell—"

Geddy tugs Alex's arm, pulling him out of the doorway. "We have to go! The Wreckers—They're gonna kill you—You have to—"

"What?"

"Look, there's no time to explain. You're just gonna have to trust me!"

"I do," Alex says, twisting free of Geddy's grip. "But there's nobody else here now, and if we're leaving I have to grab a few things." He hurries for the staircase.

Geddy can not fucking believe this is happening. He shuts the door and slams down the wooden bar—because there's no sense in basically inviting an intruder inside. He rushes up the stairs and tugs insistently at Alex's sweater. "You're joking, right? What could be more important than your life?"

"I need that newspaper clipping if I'm gonna find my mother. Also some of my dad's journals and the photo album. You think you can carry one of the angels outta here?"

"You can't be— _Really_? Assassins are coming! We don't have time for this!"

"Just guard the door," Alex says with a tired sigh, jogging up the stairs. "I'll be down in a second."

Geddy growls a noise of irritation but does as he's told. Maybe he's overreacting here. What are the odds of the Wreckers choosing this particular minute to come for Alex? They might prefer to carry out the assassination after they verify Geddy's death. There's probably time for Alex to grab a few things.

Geddy watches him reach the top of the stairs and disappear into the bedroom.

That's when the Molotov cocktail crashes through the rear clock face.


	8. Chapter 8

The bottle bursts open on the wooden floor and ignites. The blaze gnaws its way through the wood at a frightening pace, churning out smoke in thick black gusts. "Alex!" Geddy shouts, panic shaking his voice. "We have to go _now_!"

"Hold on, hold on!" comes Alex's frantic reply.

Geddy hears the crackle of the flames as orange tongues of fire lick across the floor. His heart kicks against his chest. What to do? There's no source of water down here, no faucets or anything that could subdue the blaze. Opening the door would supply more oxygen to the fire, and they'd be fucked. Somehow, Geddy doesn't think standing here helplessly is the best option, but what the hell else is he supposed to do?

"Alex!" he calls. "Now would be a really good time to get down here!"

"Yeah, I'm coming!"

The fire consumes more in its path, and smoke is everywhere now, blinding Geddy's eyes and stinging his throat. The angels appear almost heavenly with the glow of the fire flickering behind them. He covers his mouth with a hand and tries to see if he can spot Alex emerging from the bedroom. Alex steps out fully dressed, a knapsack slung over his shoulder. He sees the inferno below, and says, "Oh, fuck." He seems paralyzed, frightened by the idea of sliding down the chains and into a pit of fire.

"C'mon!" Geddy calls, and smoke pours down his throat and makes him choke. The flames grab hold of chairs, the workbench, piles of books and boxes strewn across the floor. Geddy backs up against the door as the fire grows closer. If he opens that door now, he'll escape, but Alex will be trapped. "Just slide down like you always do!"

But Geddy sees the problem now. If Alex simply slides down any one of the nearest chains, he'll land directly in the flames. He'll have to perform some impressive gymnastics to swing from one chain to the other and avoid getting engulfed.

Time seems to slow down and speed up all at once as Geddy watches. With a running jump, Alex grasps onto the closest chain. He uses the forward momentum and makes another leap, arms outstretched for the chain hanging close by the door. The one area not yet consumed by fire. His hands latch onto the chain, but he slips and drops to the floor. His head bangs against one of the angels' wings as he falls.

Without thinking, Geddy's at his side, helping him to his feet and to the door. Black smoke fills the tower, and Alex gasps a sputtery noise. Geddy drags Alex to the door as the flames close in. "You go first, okay?" He gets his hands around the knob and pulls.

The flames roar when the door opens and fresh air fuels the blaze. Alex stumbles out, choking and coughing. Fire licks at Geddy's heels, and he squeezes through the opening in the door, shutting it firmly behind him. "Why did you—" Alex rasps, sucking air.

"We have to go. C'mon." Geddy takes Alex's hand and starts to run.

"Wait, we should—Shouldn't somebody put that out?"

"It has to burn as long as possible," Geddy explains as they hurry through the streets. "Whoever set that fire did it for a reason. To kill you, and to make a statement. The longer it burns, the more likely they'll think you didn't survive. If they think you're dead, they won't come looking for you."

"But all my stuff's in there!" Alex says, grievously missing the point.

"Are you really—" Geddy looks over his shoulder at Alex, and, whoa, the right side of his face is covered in blood. "You know you're bleeding?"

"I am?" Alex lifts the fingers of his free hand to his temple. "Oh. Shit. That can't be good." He presses the sleeve of his sweater to the wound. "What about the angels? Are you sure we can't send the fire department over there to salvage—"

"Look, I'm sorry, but it's all gone. Even if it isn't, even if they put out the fire right now, it's a moot point. We're not going back. The Wreckers want both of us dead, which has put our trip to find your mother on somewhat of an accelerated schedule."

Alex goes oddly quiet, but Geddy doesn't push. The dude just lost his home and all his belongings within minutes. That's the kind of thing that can affect someone.

Geddy leads him to the library, and they make their way inside. Neil, sitting at the desk, looks up from the book he's reading, and a look of stunned surprise crosses his face. "Jesus," he whisper-shouts, "what happened to you two?"

"We need a safe house," Geddy says, approaching the desk. "The Omega Concern is go."

"Aw, jeez," Neil sighs like Geddy is just the worst. "You're breakin' my balls here, Ged." His gaze flicks to Alex. "You know you're bleeding?"

"Yeah," Alex says, sounding distant. He lifts his bloodstained sleeve to his temple again. It doesn't seem to be doing much good.

Neil shakes his head, like a teacher disappointed with a favorite pupil. "Whatever shit you guys stepped in, I know I'm probably involved now, too. So it would look suspicious for me to cut out early. Go to the watchmaker in Dionysus. Tell him I sent you. And if he asks for a password, it's By-Tor."

Geddy gives him a flat look. "Seriously?"

"Just do it. I'll come around after I close."

"Where are we s'posed to find this watchmaker?"

"Gee, I dunno. Where do you think watches are made?"

"A clock shop?" Alex wonders aloud.

Neil chuckles. "Hey! Lifeson got it."

Geddy scowls at him. "And you're sure this place is safe?"

"Although it would be tempting to have you two out of my hair for good, yes, of course it's safe."

Geddy nods and thanks him. As he pulls Alex toward the restroom, he swears he hears Neil grumble, "If I ever get anal polyps, I'll know what to name them," under his breath.

Inside the men's room, Geddy helps Alex clean up the blood pouring from his face, because they don't want to draw attention to themselves on the way to Dionysus. The wound is a small slice above Alex's eyebrow, but it bleeds like a motherfucker. His sweater sleeve is stained crimson, and Geddy tries to wash the blood out with soap and water, which only lightens the stain to a pinkish color.

Geddy's still shaking from the adrenaline, from the realization that they could have died today. He doesn't think he'll ever get over that.

The blood flow from Alex's cut has ebbed to a trickle. Geddy presses a wet cluster of paper towels to the wound while Alex looks at him with red-rimmed eyes. "So you know these guys, huh?" Alex asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

Geddy nods, wondering if anything he says here will make a difference. "I owed them a debt." The past tense is important somehow, as though reaffirming to himself that he belongs to no one.

"How did you know they were gonna..."

"They sent a friend to kill me. She wouldn't do it, but she told me what was going on."

"What do they want? What did I do?" Alex's voice breaks under the words. Geddy lets the towels drop into the sink and curls his hands around Alex's arms, holding him without squeezing, as if he can siphon his pain through touch. Alex is breathing a little more shallow now, his eyes welling up.

"You didn't do anything. This isn't your fault. They think killing you will force Danniels to give in to their demands. I guess they figure if a gruesome murder changed the laws once..."

"What about you?"

Geddy's brow creases in confusion.

"Why do they want you dead?"

"Because if they killed you first, I would be the most dangerous man in the world."

A small smile twitches at the corner of Alex's mouth. Tears race down his cheeks. "You got a pretty big ego there, Spageddy. Don't let it get your dumb ass killed, okay? I need you." One of his hands makes its way up to Geddy's face, thumb stroking over his cheek. Geddy's pulse jumps under his skin, and he pushes back Alex's hair. When he thinks of how close Alex just came to death, those flames swarming over his body and eating away at his flesh, Geddy knows he will do whatever it takes to protect him.

The ride into Dionysus is slow and uneventful. The district is the second largest in the city and is home to Dionysus Manufacturing, the massive factory that produces everything from vending machines to household goods. Smokestacks belch steam into the air when the Sky-Line pulls into the dock.

Alex gazes at the gilded, towering buildings in awe. It's almost like he's— Oh, Christ.

"You've never been here before, have you?" Geddy asks.

"I never really had a reason to."

Geddy keeps hold of Alex's hand as they weave through the streets. He isn't sure where exactly to find this watchmaker, but there's got to be a clock shop around here somewhere. Neil wouldn't send them on a snipe hunt, not when they showed up covered in blood and reeking of smoke.

The clock shop is located in a bustling plaza in the center of the district. A clockwork angel looms over the plaza with benevolent grace. The shop is named Time Stand Still, which Geddy thinks is a bit incongruous, but when your name is Geddy, well, glass houses and big stones and all that. They approach the door, and Geddy decides to just go on inside, since this is a business, and businesses generally don't stay locked up during the day.

The interior of the shop is made up of brick and wood and, obviously, a shit-load of clocks. There are giant, wall-mounted clocks, grandfather clocks, and smaller models on display on shelves. A man sits at a workbench, tinkering with a watch. This must be the watchmaker.

"Um, hi," Geddy starts. "Neil Peart sent us. Said the password is By-Tor."

The man chuckles. Geddy thinks Neil's just played an elaborate joke on him, but he can't find the punchline. "A friend of Neil is a friend of mine," the man says, standing up and greeting them with handshakes. "I'm Terry, but my friends call me Broon."

"Yeah, I'm... not gonna do that."

"I guess you're not his friend," Alex says.

"Anyway, I'm Geddy, and this is Alex. We were hoping you could offer us a safe place to stay for a day or two. I'm not—I'm not really sure how long."

Terry sizes them up and decides they must look a sight. "Not a problem. Follow me."

There's a gigantic clock that looks more like a bank vault door on the far wall. Terry sets it to 12:00 and pushes the clock aside to reveal a hidden room. There are no windows, so it looks a bit like a prison cell without the steel bars, but it's certainly large enough to hold multiple people. There are two beds on opposite sides of the room, a writing desk, a small collection of books, and a decent-sized cupboard full of non-perishable food items. On the right is a door Geddy assumes leads to a bathroom.

"You can stay here as long as you need," Terry says. "It's hardly the Apollo Towers, but it serves its purpose."

"Do you live here?" Geddy asks. "Is there another clock that's hiding a second hidden room?"

"No, just stairs." Terry points to the staircase on the far right of the shop. "I live on the second floor."

"That's... good to know, I guess. Neil said he would drop in later, by the way."

"I'll be happy to see him."

"So, wait, Time Stand Still?" Alex ponders aloud. "Isn't that, like, the opposite of what you'd want a clock to do?"

Terry chuckles a throaty sort of laugh. "Clever."

Alex and Geddy settle into the secret room and eat some of the chips in the cupboard. After freshening up the best they can, they drop onto one of the beds in an exhausted tangle of limbs. The stench of smoke saturates their clothes and hair, but it's not as though they've got anything else to change into. Alex cuddles up to him, pressed tight against the line of his body. "What happens next?"

Geddy fills him in on his conversation with Neil yesterday. Alex seems satisfied with the plan, nodding at the appropriate times and loosely curling a hand in the front of Geddy's shirt. "Are you gonna be able to pull this off?" Alex wonders. "You got that thing about heights."

"I just won't look down."

"Then how will you know where to land?"

"Well, I'll look down _then_. But not before."

Alex makes his skeptical thinking face. "I see no way this could go wrong."

Geddy thinks it's a positive sign Alex is teasing him now. The shock must be wearing off. Either that, or Alex is damn good at taking things in stride. "You know going back for that stuff was stupid, right?"

"Well, I didn't get hurt that bad, so—"

"But you could have. You could've hit your head too hard and gotten knocked out. What if I couldn't carry you out of there? We both would've died."

"But we didn't," Alex points out.

Geddy sighs. "I know. But don't take any more stupid risks, okay? I need you, too." His voice is far too steady, straining too hard to keep the quiver out.

Alex looks at him for a long moment. "Yeah, of course."

* * *

Neil drops by later that night with a bulging rucksack stuffed with what Geddy assumes are personal items. He drops the bag by the unclaimed bed and sits on the mattress. "It's pretty crazy out there," he says.

"How did you get in?" Geddy wonders, because Terry closed the shop and went upstairs about an hour ago.

"I have a key."

"Oh. What's going on outside?"

"People are rioting. Well, some of them. I guess they took the destruction of the clock tower as carte blanche to go berserk."

Alex looks despaired at the mention of his once-home.

"We should be fine as long as we stay inside," Neil says. He steeples his fingers. "Anyway, I talked to Charlene before I came here. She says five Sky-Hooks are ready. There's a cargo barge heading out of the docks here tomorrow morning. It's headed for Xanadu. If we can intercept it before it gets there, we should be in good shape."

"We leave tomorrow?" Alex says. "Like, for good?"

"Well, yeah, if we don't die or get caught."

Alex hugs his knees to his chest and inhales a deep breath.

But Geddy's mind is spinning in a different direction. "You said there's five hooks? Who else is leaving?"

"Just the three of us and Charlene."

That leaves one hook unaccounted for. Nancy should have the option of leaving Crown City, too. After all, she stuck her neck out for Geddy by alerting him to the Wreckers' plan. If she hadn't, Alex might not be here right now. And, of course, she spared Geddy's life. This is a debt that must be repaid.

Geddy gets to his feet. "We can bring one more person, then?"

Neil looks up at him with skepticism. "Yeah... What are you planning?"

"A friend of mine saved both my and Alex's lives. I think she should come with us. Or at least have the choice."

"Where are you going?" Alex asks, panic rising in his voice. "You're going out? Did you not just hear Neil say people are rioting out there?"

"I'll be fine," Geddy lies, moving for the door. "Oh, Neil, can I borrow your key?"

But Alex is up, grabbing fistfuls of Geddy's shirt and pulling him back. "You said no more stupid risks!"

"I'm trying to save someone's life," Geddy says lamely. The words ring hollow in his own ears, as though he's trying to ease his guilt over his culpability in this clusterfuck. "She saved ours. It's only fair."

Alex's face scrunches up in frustration. "You're being an idiot. You can't just go out there alone! At least—let me come with you—"

Geddy doesn't even let Alex entertain the thought. "No! You're staying here. You have to leave Crown City and find your mother."

"Yeah, but there's no—" The words choke in his throat. Alex swallows and tries again, his voice a little lower and more insistent this time. "There's no point in leaving if you're not with me."

Geddy knows he can't walk out the door and leave Alex all twisted up like this. "Okay, look, if it's too bad out there, I'll turn around and come back. But I have to try."

Alex looks devastated, but something in his eyes says he understands, on some level, why Geddy's doing this. Maybe it's more than just trying to save somebody. Maybe it's something deeper, some subconscious way of dealing with his inability to save his parents. Whatever it is, Geddy can't refuse its call.

"You better come back," Alex says, his throat tight.

"I'll do my best." Geddy smiles and takes the key from Neil. He opens the vault door and leaves the clock shop, locking up behind him.

Neil wasn't joking about the state of things. Dionysus isn't the busiest district at this hour—most of its residents work from 9 to 5 at the factory—but the streets are pretty much barren. The clockwork angel in the center of the plaza has been defaced and desecrated by graffiti. Firefighters scramble to put out a blaze eating away at part of the factory. Most storefronts have metal hoods pulled down for protection against vandals.

Geddy slips into the night and moves quickly. He doesn't want to run and draw attention, just walk fast enough to not look lost or disoriented. People usually leave you alone when you look like you know where you're going.

If Geddy's going to find Nancy, he'll have to take the Sky-Line to Syrinx. Nancy started working for the Wreckers three years ago, but Geddy hadn't known her affiliations the first time he met her. She'd been crying behind the drug store in Chronos Square, her knees pulled up to her chest and her face buried in her hands, and Geddy felt compelled to offer a kind word.

"You okay?" he asked.

She looked up at him through watery eyes. "Oh shit, sorry. Don't worry about me. I'm just having a bad day. I'm not usually like this."

"It's not your fault. I always have this effect on women."

To his surprise, that made her laugh, and she wiped her tears away with her fingers. Geddy sat beside her, offering the comfort of his presence. "So, you're having a bad day, too?" he said.

"Yeah, what's wrong with yours?"

When he first met Nancy, he was still reeling from the loss of his parents, so his true emotions and feelings would often burst out of him like a sudden, violent sneeze. "Just symptomatic of a bad life. I drink myself to sleep each night because if I don't I get these awful nightmares, and when I wake up I'm even more tired than before, and it's not like I even want to wake up, because when I do I just want to go right back to sleep." He turned his head to look at her. "What about you?"

"About the same," she said, and Geddy understood.

"You know what might cheer you up? An afternoon at Syrinx. They just opened up that amusement park."

She snorted a laugh. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah. Everybody loves ice cream and cotton candy and funnel cakes. I hear they've got an arcade, too. It'll be fun."

She fixed him with a strange look. "Am I supposed to just trust you?"

"You don't have to. This probably isn't the most ideal way of meeting somebody for the first time," he said with a chuckle.

"It is a little unorthodox," she admitted, a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "But I've had some bad luck with men..."

"Yeah, me too. All the good ones are either taken or straight."

She laughed again, and, for some reason, agreed to go to Syrinx with him. Maybe it was his sense of humor, his vulnerability, or maybe she felt she could let her guard down around a guy who wasn't attracted to women. Either way, they ended up on the Ferris wheel in Syrinx, and she told him this was her new favorite place in Crown City, "because you can see so much from up here." Every year after that, on June 12th they would spend the day in Syrinx. They never talked about making it an annual tradition, but Geddy felt like it was something she needed.

So he knows where she would go when she wants to feel safe and at ease.

Syrinx seems to have escaped the brunt of the destruction. The train car buzzes with worried chatter, and as Geddy rides the Sky-Line into the docking bay, he can see the fires burning in Chronos Square and Xanadu. He scans the group of passengers for any familiar faces, anyone who looks like they might want to kill him, but most of the riders look harmless enough.

As soon as the doors open, Geddy steps out. Armed, stone-faced guards stand near the turnstiles barricading the park, so even in the midst of the chaos surrounding Crown City, the parkgoers seem relaxed. Syrinx is aglow with lights from the shopfronts, neon signs, the carousel outside of the toy store, and the Sky-Line rails in the air.

The Ferris wheel and a collection of kiddie rides are located on a smaller section of floating island. To reach this subsection, Geddy takes the lever-activated gondola. He finds Nancy, as expected, seated in one of the Ferris wheel carriages. The ride operator knows Geddy, so he doesn't hassle him about fare. Geddy slips into the carriage beside Nancy, who gasps at the sight of him.

"Oh my God," she whimpers. "Is Alex..."

"He's alive."

Nancy breathes out a relieved sigh. Then she sniffs and leans closer. "Why do you smell like a barbecue?"

"They burned down the clock tower. We barely got out in time."

"Jesus..." she shakes her head, wrapping her arms around her middle. "How did everything get so fucked up?"

"Probably 'cause we joined the Wreckers."

Her laugh is a welcome sound right about now. The wheel begins to move, and Nancy sort of leans against him. "Shouldn't you be in hiding?"

"Shouldn't you?"

She gives him a wry grin, and they watch Crown City's lights glow against the blackness of the sky. "Did you and Alex hit the sheets yet?" Nancy asks. Geddy hears himself laugh for the first time today. The city's descending into madness around them, and Nancy's asking about his sex life. Typical.

"Yeah," Geddy answers, because he could die tomorrow. Might as well be honest. "I think the earth moved."

"Way to go." She slugs his shoulder, and they fall silent for a moment. "You wouldn't be here if you weren't certain Alex was safe. So what's up?"

Geddy moves so his lips are at her ear. To an onlooker, they appear to be just another couple. "We're leaving tomorrow. I want you to come with us. There's a cargo barge scheduled to leave Dionysus tomorrow morning. We intercept it and steer it down to the Old Nation."

"How?"

"In the air. One of my friend's associates made a hook so we can ride the Sky-Line rails."

"This sounds dangerous and ridiculously stupid." She grins. "Count me in."

Geddy feels a surge of hope.

"How are you on supplies? Once you get there, you'll need money and clothes and stuff, right? Did you go back to stock up?"

Geddy's traveling pretty light here. He probably won't be able to bring much, but a change or two of clothes and a satchel full of Silver Eagles ought to serve him well. "It's probably not safe to go back there. What about you?"

She pats a medium-size purse tucked between her and the metal carriage. "I came prepared."

Geddy runs through a cost-benefit analysis in his head. While it seems mind-meltingly stupid to risk life and limb for a pocketful of coins, clothes, and important documents, Geddy will need the latter if he intends to have any sort of fulfilling life in the Old Nation. Sure, he was born there, and records probably exist to prove it, but without proof of identity how would he get those records? At the very least, he needs identification.

Nancy looks at him. "I'll go with you. I can keep watch while you go inside."

"I'm more concerned about getting there. Cygnus is probably overrun with rioters."

Nancy lifts up her shirt to reveal a knife holstered on her hip. "I can take care of myself."

"And what about me?"

"Yeah, you are kinda wimpy and... noodly."

"The words every man wants to hear."

"I don't think we'll run into too much trouble. The riots seem to be focused in Chronos Square and Xanadu, places that represent Crown City and its government."

"Dionysus is seeing its fair share," Geddy says.

"Because of the factories. But Cygnus doesn't really have anything people can rally against. We'll be there for ten minutes tops." Nancy gives him a strangely serious look. "I won't let anything happen to you. I promise."

"Yeah, same here."

"Says the noodly man without a weapon."

When the Ferris wheel comes to a stop, they disembark for the Sky-Line to Cygnus.

* * *

Alex can't stop moving. He paces the floor with nervous energy, his mind racing with horrible thoughts of what might be happening to Geddy out there. He hates waiting here, unable to do anything but drive himself insane with worry. Should he go look for Geddy? But where exactly would he go? Geddy didn't leave any hints as to where he was headed. If Alex leaves the safe house to look for Geddy, Geddy might return and wonder where Alex is. Then they'd both be searching endlessly for each other with no way of contact. So he should stay here and wait.

God, where the hell is he?

Alex has a pretty vivid imagination, which doesn't serve him particularly well here. It's like his brain is running through all the awful scenarios that could happen in order to prepare him for it when it does. Because it will. Maybe not for thirty or forty or fifty years, but it will happen, because it happens to everyone, just like it happened to Alex's father, but Alex knows he won't survive when it happens to Geddy.

Neil, lying on the other bed, sighs a loud, exasperated noise and sets down the book he's been reading for the past thirty minutes. "Your inner monologue seems to have broken free."

Alex whirls to face him. "Oh shit. I'm sorry. I sort of talk, y'know, when I'm nervous. It calms me down."

"Are you calm now?"

"Maybe not in this particular instance..."

"Yeah, I guess you could say shit has hit the proverbial fan here." Neil sits up and leans against the wall.

"How do you do it?" Alex asks, forcing himself to stop moving. He sits on the other bed and hugs the pillow to his chest. "Not have anybody? I mean, it makes perfect sense—loved ones pretty much own you—but... how?"

Neil looks taken aback by the question. "I have people. What makes you think I don't?"

"Well... you're kind of a grouch."

"I still have people. I have my family."

 _Lucky_ , Alex thinks before internally scolding himself. "And you're okay with leaving them?"

"They live in the Old Nation," Neil explains. "I left when I was eighteen, because I was young and naïve and thought there was a better life up here in the sky. Turns out it's just a whole new set of problems."

Alex can't stop himself from risking a glance at the vault door. Neil catches him and sighs. "Geddy will be fine. I'm sure you've figured this out by now, but he's sort of the roguish type. He can handle himself."

"That just means he's in more danger. The people who want me dead tried to kill him, too." Alex's pulse races just thinking about it. "If he's out there—Fuck, I shouldn't have let him—"

"'Let him'? You don't 'let' Geddy do anything. He's bull-headedly determined to do whatever the hell he wants. But I don't think he's stupid enough to get himself killed for anyone but you. He'll come back. No matter what."

Alex isn't sure what to think about that, but it seems like Neil's trying to make him feel better.

"Did he tell you about his parents?"

"A little. He told me what happened to them." Alex picks at a hangnail. "He said he hired people to 'deal with' the killer."

Neil looks surprised, and Alex briefly worries he's revealed something private that Neil shouldn't know. But Neil nods and says, "I met Geddy when I moved to Crown City. He spent most of his time in the library, which was where I hung out, too. Even two years after his parents' deaths, there was something off about him. I could tell he wanted companionship, but it's like he wouldn't let himself open up and care for someone again. He would say things just to scare people off. It took a long time for me to break down those walls."

Alex doesn't say anything, just waits for Neil to say more.

"I'm not sure if what happened to Geddy was the perfect storm of tragedy: losing both of his parents at such a young age, and losing them in such a cruel, senseless way. Maybe if one of them had died of natural causes, he would have been able to handle it, but... He was lost for a long time." Neil looks at Alex. "I've always been oddly fascinated with how someone survives something like that, what kind of person comes out on the other end."

A wave of concern washes over Alex, and he curses himself for being so wrapped up in his own problems. What sort of pain must Geddy be dealing with?

"I wouldn't worry about him out there," Neil says, as though sensing Alex's turmoil. "I'd worry about the damn fool who tries to keep the two of you apart."

To what lengths might Geddy go to ensure his reunion with Alex? Would he hurt someone? Kill someone? What about Alex himself? If someone stands in his way tomorrow, will he cross the line to make sure he and Geddy escape?

"Sorry about your tower," Neil says after a moment. "That must've been rough."

Alex blinks away tears he didn't know he was shedding. "Yeah..."

"What will you do when you find your mother?"

"I dunno. I hope she'll be happy to see me. There's always a small chance my dad was right about her, and he just told me she died so I wouldn't do what we're doing now." Alex huffs a small laugh. "Maybe it's not a good idea. I mean, she had twenty years, right? In all that time she couldn't have tried to find me? Danniels says Dad kept her out, but still... Couldn't she have figured out a way to see her own son?" His heart swells in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

"You'll have to ask her," Neil says. "I imagine the truth is somewhere where it tends to be: in the middle."

"My dad was a lot sicker than I thought. He was so afraid of losing me he wouldn't let me leave the tower without him." Alex's throat goes dry. "It scares me that I kind of understand his fear. Whatever was wrong with him... I think it's happening to me, too. I feel like I'm losing my mind, just like he did."

"To be fair, you've been through some pretty heavy stuff the last year or so. First your dad, now this. Anybody would go a little crazy."

"It feels like it's been happening before that," Alex says, shaking his head. "I can't explain it. It's just—something doesn't feel right."

Neil nods as though considering that. "It's possible your father's illness is genetic. Maybe when you get to the Old Nation, you can see a doctor who can figure out what's going on with you." Crown City has one huge medical hospital located in Xanadu, but mental illness is still a stone left unturned. Alex wonders if his father set things up that way; in a society with no psychiatrists or psychologists, no one could tell him he was unfit to care for Alex.

"What if something's wrong?" Alex lies on the rumpled sheets, panic running rampant in his head. "In ten years I could be just as paranoid and unstable as my dad was. I won't be me anymore, and the worst part of it is it won't feel wrong to me. My dad never thought he was sick or that he wasn't thinking straight. He thought he was doing the right thing by locking me away and taking me out of school. His brain just... turned on him." Alex shivers though he isn't cold. "That won't happen, right? God's already screwed me enough. Anything more would just be too much." Something inside of him bursts, and he turns his face into the pillow, sobbing like a baby.

* * *

There's something in the air in the slums of Cygnus: an electric sort of danger that prickles at the back of Geddy's neck. It doesn't look much different than usual—most of the windows are boarded up, the paint is shedding off the buildings, some of the streetlamps are burned out, and a few thin, hollow-eyed people loiter on stoops—but Geddy can feel that something has changed. He keeps a tight hold on Nancy's hand as they walk.

"I can't believe you live here voluntarily," she whispers as broken glass crunches under their boots. "Do you really have that low an opinion of yourself?"

Geddy doesn't answer, because he doesn't know how.

A couple of letters are burned out in La Villa Strangiato's sign. A creeping feeling of dread crawls over Geddy's skin as he enters the building. Something in his brain tells him to turn around and leave, but he pushes it down. He's always been a bit of a wuss. He can handle this. They won't be inside more than five minutes.

He didn't lock the door when he left this morning, so his room is unlocked. Nancy wraps a hand around the hilt of her knife as Geddy opens the door. Empty. They do a quick sweep, checking inside the bathroom and closet for any intruders. Once the room is cleared, Geddy throws his wallet and important papers into the rucksack by the bed. Nancy tosses him clothing from the dresser drawers, which he hurriedly folds and stuffs into the bag. The dresser is against the wall opposite the door, so Geddy is taken entirely by surprise when someone punches him in the liver. Geddy hears himself whimper, and he drops to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. His head bangs against the sharp edge of the dresser, sending shards of pain through his skull. Nancy screams a sound that cuts off abruptly.

Dizziness swims through Geddy as he peels himself off of the floor. There's a huge slab of muscle towering over Nancy. He's got his meaty paws wrapped around her wrists like iron fetters. Nancy has the knife clutched in one hand, but she's not letting go. "You were s'posed to take care of this," the man growls at her. "Guess that's what John gets for sending a woman to do a man's job."

Nancy strikes lightning-fast and snaps a kick into his knee, forcing it back the wrong way. The leg bows and crumbles, but the man doesn't fall. Instead, he rears back and strikes her face with his forehead. Blood explodes from her nose, and her grip on the knife slackens. The blade drops to the floor. Nancy's attacker pushes her backwards, and the edge of the bed takes her out at the knees.

Geddy never learned how to fight, but he knows the basics. Aim for the weak spots. Don't let your guard down. Don't throw punches if you don't have to. Panic consumes him, and he doesn't know how to harness the adrenaline rush instead of letting it paralyze him.

But all living organisms at their core are about survival. Certain defense mechanisms come prebaked into our nervous systems. This guy might be bigger and stronger than both of them, but Geddy has to do something, no matter how this is going to end. He has to go for the knife.

So, with the big man's back turned, Geddy's survival instincts take over. He dives for the blade like a drowning man after a life preserver. Geddy scrambles to his feet and drives the knife into the man's back. The attacker screams in agony, and Geddy knows he's only succeeded in pissing him off. He wraps both hands around the knife handle and tries to wiggle the blade free.

Geddy's so consumed with getting the knife out that he's forgotten about all the other tools in a fighter's arsenal. The man, realizing that Geddy is solely focused on the knife, turns his body so he can slam his elbow into Geddy's face. Jolts of hot pain burst through him, but pain means nothing to Geddy right now.

The knife comes free with a squelching sound, and the man bears down on Geddy. Geddy realizes he's going to have to stab this guy again, possibly multiple times, like the first time wasn't the worst thing he's ever done. But the burning desire to stay alive overrides the network that controls his behavior.

Geddy realizes the man has a weapon, and a hammer is coming down on top of his head like an axe. Timing and momentum are on his side, and Geddy knows the claw of the hammer will bust open his skull like old drywall, lodging into his brain as it goes. If he doesn't act now, it's all over.

Geddy ducks low and slams into the man's waist, driving the knife in as he goes. The attacker makes a choking sound, and they fall to the ground. Geddy pulls up on the blade, slicing through the stomach. It's not smooth, it's not easy, and Geddy wants to stop, but adrenaline keeps him going until the blade stops at bone.

The man's eyes, wide and dimming, lock onto Geddy's own. Blood trickles out of his mouth. It's the most awful thing Geddy's ever seen, and he hopes to God it always will be, because there shouldn't be anything worse than watching someone die in front of you.

The room goes still and silent, but Geddy hears the roar of blood and the manic pulse of his heart in his ears. He killed someone. Granted, the guy was trying to kill them, but Geddy still took a life, no matter how you look at it. He knows he's going to see that face for a very long time when he closes his eyes. As if he didn't have enough nightmare fuel.

Blood soaks into the knees of his pants, warm and horrible, and Geddy really, really wants to be sick right now. He's vaguely aware of Nancy kicking the hammer out of the man's lifeless hand. The weapon skitters underneath the bed.

"C'mon," Nancy says softly. She takes the knife from Geddy's trembling hands and wipes the blade on the man's pant leg before holstering the weapon. "We have to go."

"But—but what if someone finds him?" Geddy sputters, jittery hysteria jamming up his throat. "This is my room. They could—they could come after me." His brain is spinning in a hundred different directions at once. He swallows and immediately regrets it, because the air tastes and smells like blood.

Nancy grabs Geddy's fully-packed bag and slings it over her shoulder. "Yeah, it's your room. They'll find the hammer with this guy's prints on it, and figure you did this in self-defense. Which is what happened. Besides, we're not even gonna be here in over twelve hours. None of this matters. Let's go."

But it does matter, even if only on a basic level of humanity. Because Geddy killed someone, and that's the kind of thing that fucks a person up. Only someone who's messed up from the start can kill and not feel anything. How is he supposed to just forget about this?

Before they leave, Geddy takes a wine bottle from the third dresser drawer into his shaking hands.


	9. Chapter 9

Alex is on his feet when he hears noise on the other side of the vault door. When Geddy comes inside, Alex rushes him and hugs him like he's a recently-released POW. Geddy doesn't really respond to the hug, just sort of stands there, but eventually his hands slide up Alex's back, and Alex can feel the quiver there.

Alex pulls back to get a look at him, and a gasp springs from his throat. There's a deep red bruise on the right side of Geddy's face along his jaw. Alex lifts his fingers to the discoloration, touching it gingerly. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Just a little scuffle," says a female voice behind Geddy. "He'll be fine." She steps forward and offers Alex her hand. "I'm Nancy. You must be Alex. It's nice to finally meet you."

"Holy shit, your face!" Alex gasps, because Nancy's got a nasty-looking bruise spreading over the bridge of her nose. There's some dried blood above her upper lip. "What happened?"

Geddy sits on the bed and opens his bag, takes out a bottle of wine. With trembling hands, he gets it open and takes a long drink. He looks frail and bruised all the way through, and it makes Alex feel gutted, because he doesn't know how to help.

Nancy looks at Geddy for a moment before her gaze settles on Alex. "We ran into some trouble." She lifts up her shirt to reveal a holstered knife. "But we took care of it."

_Geddy. Oh my God, Geddy._

Alex sits beside him and takes Geddy's face in his hands. "It's okay. Whatever you did, it's okay."

Neil, who's been sleeping soundly on the other bed until now, grumbles and blinks himself awake. "Is Geddy back?" The answer to that question is right in front of him, and he mutters, "Oh, yeah, okay."

"Let me guess: you must be Neil?" Nancy introduces herself and shakes his hand. Neil still looks half asleep. "Geddy talks a lot about you."

"All good, I hope."

Nancy hesitates a moment too long. "Yeah, why not?"

"Well, it's nice to meet you," Neil says, sitting up. He pushes a hand through his hair and gets a good look at her face. "Good Lord, what happened to you?"

Nancy puts her hands on her hips. "It's like you guys've never seen a busted nose before. Relax, we're fine."

But Alex isn't so sure.

Later that night, Neil surrenders the other bed to Nancy and sleeps on the floor. Geddy and Alex squeeze in beside each other, and Geddy is shaking like he's cold. Alex throws an arm around him and pulls him closer, nudges his thigh between Geddy's legs to warm him up. "You okay?" Alex murmurs, watching Geddy's face in the dim light leaking from the bathroom.

Geddy curls a hand around Alex's arm as though afraid of what might happen if he lets go. His gaze meets Alex's own and then darts away.

"What happened out there?"

"I don't wanna—"

"Tell me. Please. Neil told me how closed-off you get when you're in pain. You need someone, and you can't keep everything bottled up inside. Sometimes talking about stuff helps."

Geddy shakes his head. "Talking makes it real."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it already is."

Geddy looks at Alex for a moment and doesn't say a word.

Outside, a loud noise pierces the night, sounding like something very heavy hitting the ground. Alex jumps and glances over his shoulder at the vault door, as though whatever's out there might find a way inside. He thinks the floor shook, but he can't be certain.

Then the room is silent again save for the sound of Neil's snores. Geddy chooses this moment to say, in a hushed voice, "I killed someone."

And there it is. Somehow, Alex isn't as surprised as he thought he'd be. Neil had mentioned the possibility earlier, so maybe that's why Alex is watching Geddy like he expects more to the story. "For Nancy, right? You were trying to protect her."

Geddy opens his mouth to argue with that, but the words don't come out. He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. "That doesn't excuse it."

"Of course it does. Look what he did to both of you. You could have been killed. And, no, it wouldn't have been better that way," Alex says, sensing a self-deprecating interruption from Geddy. "I couldn't live if you were dead. I can lose everything else, but not you."

Geddy doesn't say anything. Tears stream from his eyes, rolling over the bridge of his nose. Alex pulls him in tighter, as close as two people can be, and lets Geddy nestle into his shirt and cry.

* * *

Neil wakes them up at an ungodly hour, and after quick bouts of breakfast and freshening up, the fantastic four are on the move. The first thing Geddy notices when he steps outside the shop is that the clockwork angel in the center of the plaza has been destroyed. Its upper body lies on the ground, head severed at the neck and one of its wings broken, graffiti scrawled over its base and midsection.

Alex makes a strangled noise of pain and stops his stride. He stares at the wreckage for a long moment, then he's moving towards it. He approaches the ruins of the angel and kneels, his hands curved around the glazed marble edges of the unbroken wing. His mouth quivers, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. Geddy steps closer to offer the anchor of his presence.

Alex is murmuring soft words Geddy can't quite catch, then his breath hitches, and he's weeping against the angel like it's the tombstone of a loved one. And maybe, in some way, it is. "Hey, it's okay," Geddy says, but he's terrible at comforting people, and this only makes Alex cry harder, because he knows there's nothing okay about any of this. His fingers press into the grooves that make up the feathers in the angel's wing. "Alex." Geddy kneels beside him, and Alex clutches onto him, burrowing his face into Geddy's shoulder as his body convulses with sobs.

Nancy is the first to step over to them. She crouches beside Alex's shaking form and brushes the hair away from his neck. Her tenderness inspires Neil to join them, and he bends down to lay a hand on Alex's shoulder. Geddy isn't sure how much time passes like this, the three of them huddled around Alex and siphoning his pain, but eventually Alex's sobs cease and he gets his feet under him.

Neil leads them through the debris-ridden streets of Dionysus and into a run-down, gloomy tavern. The barkeep behind the counter sees Neil and nods at him. Neil nods back and escorts the group to the basement. Inside the basement is an impressive workshop of gadgets and machinery. At the helm of it all is an attractive young woman with long blonde hair tied back, wearing a pair of oil-stained overalls. She pulls off her protective goggles and steps away from the workbench. "Neil, how are you, babe?"

Neil shrugs and says, "I've been better. Guys, this is Charlene. She's the brains behind the Air-Hooks."

Charlene surveys the motley crew Neil's brought her, and a look of worry crosses her soft features. "What happened to you guys?"

Nancy shrugs and says, "Eh, life."

"Man, no wonder you wanna leave!" She laughs an airy sound before focusing on Alex. "You must be the founder's son! It's an honor to meet you." Charlene shakes his hand.

"Really?" Alex says, sounding a little lost.

"Of course. We're artists. Kindred spirits."

Geddy feels a pang of fear at this, the worry that somehow Alex will find something in Charlene that speaks to him, something that Geddy himself does not possess, and Alex will choose her instead. Despite Alex's heartfelt admissions last night, Geddy has already lost everything once before, so rationality is not really an option here.

"You know about my work?"

"The angels are so beautiful. You should be proud."

"Yeah..." Alex says, glancing off. "You, um, you made the Air-Hooks?"

"Yes!" Charlene rushes over to the workbench, where five confusing-looking contraptions lie on the table. "So there's one, two, three, four, five—Oh, great, one for each of us!" She picks up one of the hooks and sticks her arm through the bracer. "So you wear it like this, and, obviously, you wanna tighten the straps so it fits snug. Then your fingers wrap around here." She demonstrates the usage of the brass knuckle-looking fixture. "It's powerfully magnetized to the freight hooks and Sky-Lines, so you just have to jump toward one and pull the trigger, and it'll latch on. The trigger is what activates the magnetization, so you won't dislocate your shoulder on the dismount."

Geddy raises his hand. "Are you absolutely sure about that?"

Nancy scoffs and bats down his hand. "He has a thing about heights."

"Just don't look down," Charlene says with a shrug. Like it's that simple.

"I'm more concerned about the fallibility of this. If these fail, we die," Geddy says as gently as he can, because he doesn't want to sound like an asshole.

"I've tested each one. They work."

"She knows what she's doing. If she says they work, they work," Neil says stiffly. "What I want to know is who's gonna pilot the barge down to the Old Nation?"

Alex's hand shoots up.

Neil sighs. "Anybody besides Alex?"

That just makes Alex wave his arm in the air, like a kid who really wants the teacher to call on him in class.

"Alright, fine, Alex, how do you know how to fly a barge?"

"Well, I don't—"

It's almost as if the entire room groans.

"But—let me finish—I've read about it." Before everyone can protest at once, Alex cuts in. "Hey, hey, c'mon, like any of you could do better? I'm the most qualified person in this room. Yeah, how's it feel?"

"Shame. I feel shame," Neil deadpans.

"I've spent a long time in that tower surrounded by books. You'd be surprised what I know how to do. Right, Ged?"

Geddy blushes furiously and toys with his hair. "Um..."

Neil sighs again. "Okay, look, all Alex really has to do is land the thing."

Geddy's starting to have second thoughts about this so-called plan, but it's not like they've got any other options. The city is currently devolving into anarchy, so they picked an awesome time to jump ship, so to speak.

"There's a barge scheduled for Xanadu around noon," Neil says. "So that gives us two hours to get our shit together."

"Two hours?" Alex whines. "I've had twenty-two years and I still haven't gotten it together."

"Reassuring words from our captain," Charlene snickers, and Geddy thinks if he's going to die today, being surrounded by these four lovely fools isn't such a bad way to go.

* * *

Somehow, things are worse when they get outside. The Sky-Line trains have been stopped due to the riots in the districts. From the Dionysus docks, Geddy can see fires alight in Chronos Square, the crumbled clockwork angel that once stood there.

"Well, this makes things a bit easier," Neil says. With the trains stopped, they don't have to worry about sharing the Sky-Lines with anyone or anything. The barges, however, are still on time, and Geddy watches their current mark being loaded with freight. The shipping bay is restricted to authorized personnel only, but anyone on the docks can watch. Soon, the cargo barge will depart and sail on towards Xanadu, then the melee will begin.

Geddy feels a chill as the breeze flutters through his hair. A small crowd is gathered around the Sky-Line boarding area despite the 'out of order' sign and the fact that the train isn't docked, but the congregation helps Geddy and the others blend in.

Alex can't stop staring at the distant destruction in Chronos Square. Geddy tries to distract him, but Alex pays him no mind. He keeps a hand on the small of Alex's back, like the touch might remind him that this isn't the end, that there's something better for him waiting down below.

"Why did they have to destroy them?" Alex wonders, his voice wobbly. "They could've just left them alone."

Geddy moves closer. "Someday, this is all gonna feel worlds away, like a bad dream."

"You're not having second thoughts, are you?" Charlene asks, placing her hand on Alex's arm.

Alex shakes his head. "This whole place is falling apart. My dad's vision..."

Geddy has no idea what to say. He knows there's a right thing to say, and if he could only figure out what it is, he could soothe the thing in Alex that needs soothing.

Neil interrupts the moment by saying, "There it goes."

The barge is leaving the dock, floating onward to Xanadu. Pandemonium erupts in Geddy's brain and insides. "Looks like it's showtime," Nancy says, tightening the straps of her Air-Hook.

Geddy's hands are clammy with sweat. His feet feel like they've been nailed to the ground. His heart bangs in his chest like a trapped bird looking for a window. There's no way he can do this. This is crazy.

"So who's going first?" Alex asks, surveying the group for volunteers.

Geddy thinks Charlene ought to go first if only to demonstrate faith in her own invention. After all, how are the rest of them supposed to trust it if the inventor herself doesn't? But he doesn't want to draw unwanted—read: any—attention to himself at such a critical juncture, so Geddy says nothing.

Neil volunteers himself for the job. "I'll do it. Wait for the barge to get some distance, then we'll go. We wanna make sure they can't easily call for reinforcements."

The next two minutes are both the slowest and fastest in Geddy's entire life. He wants to grab onto Alex's hand to anchor himself, but if Geddy shows any signs of nervousness Alex will be even more ill at ease. Since Alex has enough problems, Geddy wipes his free hand on his pants and curls his fingers around the brass knuckle handle of the Air-Hook.

"Alright," Neil says, readying himself for the jump. "Someone needs to cover me, because as soon as I land there's gonna be a fight, and I'll need back-up."

"I've got you," Nancy says.

Neil moves with about as much grace as you'd expect from a six-foot tall man. He takes a running leap toward the Sky-Line. The magnetized hook yanks him closer, and the blade catches the rail with a metallic clang. His momentum swings him along the twists and turns of the rail, his body dangling precariously in the clouds. Nancy follows suit, and, naturally, this display of aerial acrobatics earns a throng of onlookers.

Charlene jumps onto the rail, soaring through the sky. Then it's Alex's turn, and he tugs Geddy's hand, beckoning him forward. "C'mon, Spageddy," he says with a grin, and he's leaping over the barrier and latching onto the rail. Geddy watches him grow smaller and smaller as the Sky-Line carries him away, laughing and whooping like this is actually _fun_.

The combined fears of being left alone and this display drawing the attention of policemen forces Geddy to stop being a chickenshit and just _jump_.

It's the most terrifying thing he's ever experienced. It's like riding a roller coaster, but instead of being inside a metal cart with safety bars, he's flying along the twisting tracks with nothing to protect the fragile bag of bones and blood he calls a body. There's nothing to stop him from seeing the miles between his feet and the ground. The Sky-Line curves around a building before climbing a steep ascent into the clouds. Geddy doesn't know whether to hold his breath or scream. The wind whips his hair, his clothes, his shoulder bag, and the air freezes the wetness in his eyes.

He can see Alex and Charlene in the distance, can hear their gleeful shouts as the rails sweep them along. Geddy zooms under an overpass and feels his heart pound against his ribcage. Every curve makes his body jerk and thrash like a ragdoll. Before Geddy's family moved to Crown City, he had been friends with an older neighbor boy who took him for a ride in his father's truck. Of course, sixteen-year-olds are not the best drivers, and Geddy remembers being slammed against the passenger side door with every wild, sharp turn. A funny thing to think about at a time like this, but there you have it.

Geddy rockets down a long stretch of rail, and he sees the barge. Neil and Nancy are already boarded and dealing with the crew. Alex and Charlene dismount from the rail to join the fray. Geddy's got no idea how he's supposed to make another death-defying leap, but if the other four have done it with relative success, maybe he can, too.

Geddy jerks his arm away from the rail and makes the jump. The speed with which he homes in on the barge is blinding, and there's barely any time for his brain to register how fucking scary this is before his boots hit the deck with a heavy thud. Almost immediately, he's faced with one of the barge crew members swinging a wrench at his head. Before Geddy can think about moving or even remember to suck air into his lungs, the wrench bashes against the side of his face. The world spins in a blur of fragmented images, and Geddy goes down hard, stunned and tasting blood. The man grabs him by the collar and yanks him to his feet, and this is it, he's going to throw Geddy off the barge. If only the world would stop spinning, if only the dark spots weren't blooming in Geddy's field of vision, he might be able to do something other than just hang limply as the man begins to heave Geddy's weight to the side.

Then Geddy's on the ground again, and the man is flying over the edge of the ship, his scream fading as he plummets to the world below. Alex is in front of him now, down on his knees in Geddy's face, his hand gingerly touching the throbbing welt on his cheek. "Are you okay?"

For a moment nothing else matters, because they're alive and in love and maybe they're going to make it to the Old Nation and live happily ever after, and then Geddy realizes something. "Aren't you s'posed to be driving this thing?"

"Oh! Yeah!" Alex rises and takes Geddy's hand, helping him to his feet. His legs have gone loose and shaky beneath him, but he manages to make it inside the pilothouse where the others are congregated. There are no more crew members aboard, and Geddy tries not to think about what that means.

"C'mon, get us out of here, kid," Neil says, stepping aside so Alex has full control of the navigation panel. Alex runs his fingers over the buttons and levers before finding the one he needs. The ship accelerates a bit too hard, and everyone goes toppling forward. The cargo flies off the deck and into the great unknown.

"Oops," Alex says, which is not a particularly comforting thing to hear from your pilot. "Sorry."

Geddy's going to cut him some slack here, though, because Alex has never driven anything before. It can't be easy to do something for the first time with an audience counting on you not to fuck it up.

Alex gets them underneath one of the Sky-Line rails and steers them downwards. They gain a bit of speed slicing through the clouds. Geddy watches the buildings rise above them like helium balloons, climbing higher and higher as the barge descends in somewhat of a nosedive. The Lifeson Particle prevents the ship from gaining too much speed, however.

"We need to go faster," Alex says, looking over his shoulder and out the pilothouse door. "We don't want them sending a gunship after us."

"Crown City has gunships?" Geddy wonders.

"My father was paranoid enough to have some commissioned," Alex explains. "I read over some of the notes I found in that chest. That code he was writing in was just another language: Serbian, my father's native tongue. From what I could translate, it's entirely possible Crown City could be turned into an aerial battleship in the event of a threat."

"I'll take the particle out," Neil volunteers. "That'll give us some more speed."

"This thing is too heavy, though," Charlene says. "Once you take it out, we'll just drop."

"There's a threshold down there that, once we pass it, we're the Old Nation's problem, and Crown City won't want to get tangled up in all that red tape. I can put the particle back in once we get close enough to the ground, then Alex can get us down."

"Whatever, just do it now!" Alex urges.

The particle is contained in a glass vial locked into complicated-looking machinery. It glistens and shimmers like something out of a fairy tale. "Hold on to something," Neil warns. He reaches out and plucks the vial from its metal prison.

Immediately, the ship gains speed and drops through the air like a meteor. Everyone lurches forward, caught in the pull of gravity as Alex frantically tries to slow their descent. He jerks on a lever, which does absolutely nothing. The barge is not built with aerodynamics in mind, relying solely on the particle for lift, so it's unlikely Alex will be able to fly something that's just free-falling through the air.

"It's okay," Geddy reassures him. "It's just like the chains in the tower, remember?"

Alex gives him a small smile, and Geddy's lost in admiring him for a moment until his peripheral vision catches how the quilt-like patchwork of the world below is rapidly coming into focus.

"Uh, Neil?"

Neil clicks the vial back into place. The barge rights itself, no longer nose-diving toward the earth. But it's still descending, albeit at a much smoother, less pants-shittingly terrifying rate. Alex warns, "Okay, hold on, guys. There's no wheels on this thing, so we're not gonna land so much as crash."

"Oh, that's encouraging," Nancy says dryly.

"But I'll try to make it as smooth as I can."

Geddy clutches the pilot's chair as though his life depends on it—and, hey, maybe it does. Alex turns the steering wheel, and the ship banks right, losing altitude and speed.

"Don't hit that house!" Charlene chirps.

Alex spins the barge around so the rear will absorb most of the impact, and Geddy thinks they're actually going to die here, so he buries his nose in Alex's hair and closes his eyes, surrounded in the scent and essence of him, the image of Alex behind his eyelids, and if this is how it ends, he's ready.

There are no real words to describe the crash. It's jolting and sudden, making all the standing passengers lose their footing, and the barge skids across the ground for a while before finally coming to a rest. It would be anti-climactic if Geddy wasn't so ridiculously elated that all of his limbs are still attached.

He can hear the feverish pulse of his heart in his ears, the excited rush of blood pumping through his veins. "Alex?" he calls, thready and panicked, looking at Alex's form slumped over the console. There's no blood pooling around the controls, but that doesn't mean anything. His neck could have snapped during the landing. Alex needs to move, he can't be dead, that can't be how this ends. "Alex? C'mon, get up." _Just move, please,_ Geddy begs, and miraculously, Alex does, straightening up and shaking out hysterical laughter in bursts of air.

"Holy shit! That was awesome!" Alex turns to look at Geddy, then his expression shifts into worry. "Wait, is everyone else okay? I'm gonna feel like a total asshole for saying that if somebody's hurt."

"I'm fine," Neil says from behind them, rubbing his shoulder. "I think we're all okay."

"Just a few bumps and bruises," Nancy says.

Charlene unfastens her Air-Hook and drops it onto the floor. On shaky legs, she walks over to the particle and studies it curiously. "Someone should take this, don't you think? In the wrong hands, this could be a problem."

"We just survived a crash landing, and you're worried about that?" Nancy muses.

Charlene shrugs. "Science is sorta my thing."

Geddy's hit with another pang of jealousy and wonder, because if Alex's life had worked out the way it was supposed to, he would have followed in his father's footsteps and become a scientist, and Charlene would be a perfect match for him. But, somewhere along the way, he took a left instead of a right and found Geddy instead.

"We did it," Alex says softly, as though talking to himself. He climbs out of the chair, and looks at Geddy with an unrestrained grin, his cheeks flushed and his eyes wide. "We really did it." Then he's reaching out for Geddy and kissing him hard and deep, his gentle hands curved around Geddy's battered face.

"Wow, he's really happy about that landing," Charlene blurts out, oblivious, and Geddy doesn't even care that she can't tell friends don't kiss like this, consuming and needy and clutching at each other's clothes.

When the kiss is over, Geddy's shaking for an entirely different reason. Cheating death is a milestone, a springboard for untold possibilities. He's nowhere near ready to die. He has been dead long enough.

Neil clears his throat. "Maybe we should get going. I doubt we conveniently landed where we ought to be."

"Right, yeah, sorry," Geddy says, tucking his hair behind his ears.

Alex takes the particle as they leave, tucking the vial inside his bag. Neil is the first to step out of the pilothouse and into the brand new world.

They've landed in the snow-covered backyard of a large two-story cabin. White-tipped fir trees surround them and dot the landscape. In the distance, there's a frozen river, maybe a lake, Geddy doesn't know. It's a body of water. The cabin's chimney churns out steam into the cold air. While Geddy and the others try to get their bearings, Alex laughs gleefully and tosses handfuls of snow into the air. "What is this?"

"Snow," Geddy says, like it's obvious, but he realizes that, holy shit, Alex has never actually seen snow. Crown City has a climate bubble around it to maintain tolerable temperatures and employs "rain-catchers" to collect water from the precipitation in the clouds. The absence of rain and snow is something Geddy never really noticed until just now.

Alex is, of course, attempting to build a snowman. Geddy gently takes hold of his wrists and stops him. "You'll freeze your hands off," he chides softly, warming Alex's cold, wet hands with his own. "You need those."

Alex smirks in a flirty sort of way. "Maybe _you_ do."

"I was referring to your art," Geddy says, growing flustered at the suggestion. "But, um, since we're on the subject, yeah, that too."

Geddy becomes aware of the cabin, and one of its occupants is moving toward them. The man is dressed in heavy winter clothes, his boots clomping through the snow. He's wearing a camoflage baseball cap, and he has a thick, dark beard. He also has a shotgun.

"Aw, shit," Geddy groans, because isn't this just their fucking luck?


	10. Chapter 10

Neil is good with words and diplomacy, so he steps forward and introduces himself to the gun-toting stranger who does not look pleased at the clusterfuck that's dropped into his backyard. "Hi, I'm Neil, and these are my friends. We're from Crown City, and we're just trying to find our way to Toronto. We're really sorry about crashing on your land, and we'll be happy to—"

"Crown City?" the man asks, his mouth dropping open. "One of those floating cities in the sky?" He points upward, as though Neil didn't know what he's talking about.

"Yeah, you've heard of it?"

"Of course! You folks are a bit of a curiosity down here, eh? Seems like nobody ever comes back once they're up there."

"We're what you might call an anomaly," Neil says with a chuckle before his teeth start to chatter from the cold.

The man scratches his wooly beard for a moment, then he extends his hand. "Name's Vic. Nice to meet you, Neil. Why don't you and your friends come inside and warm up?"

Neil thanks him profusely. Geddy and the rest of their troupe follow him inside the cabin, which, as the door squeaks open, he discovers is a pretty spacious home. The interior is all cozy wood and warmth with a musty pine smell. There's a stone fireplace in the living room with a log crackling inside. There are lots of windows, giving the home a spacious and airy feel. The walls are beige, and wood beams accent the hardwood floors. Above the fireplace is a scenic painting of a barn in autumn.

A woman works in the kitchen, an apron cinched around her waist and her brown hair tied back. "These folks are from Crown City, hon," Vic explains to her. "Why don't we get them set up with something to eat?"

Alex protests, "Oh, no, we—we couldn't, we don't really have—"

"Don't worry about it," Vic says. "Just tell me how you made it down here and got all those bruises, and it's on the house."

A decent offer.

Vic shows them upstairs to the guest room. The room features four sets of twin-size bunk beds and a small lounge area with a window showcasing the forest of snow-capped trees outside. The burnt orange bedding mixes well with the soft wood beams and flooring. It's the kind of guest room that makes you wonder what extravagant monstrosity the master bedroom is.

"Wow," Geddy says.

Vic chuckles. "We have a lot of family over for the holidays, and this way they stay a little longer. You can go ahead and get settled if you want, fight over beds. Bathroom's down the hall. If you need anything, let me know."

"Wait, you're letting us spend the night?" Alex asks, clearly befuddled by the idea of hospitality.

"Well, it looks like you folks went through hell to get here. It wouldn't feel right to send you out into the cold without a proper night's sleep first, eh?"

"Oh, gosh, thank you! You're very kind!"

"I'm happy to help a band of weary travelers," Vic says with a smile before leaving the room and giving them privacy.

Geddy settles onto the nearest bed and opens his bag, picking out a change of fresh clothes. A hot shower and a meal sounds like the greatest thing in the world right now. Nancy and Charlene seem to have the same idea, because they're unpacking clothes, too.

"Well, I like this place so far," Alex says. "What're the chances you crash in someone's yard and they invite you in for food and a bed?"

"Life can suck sometimes, but people are great," Neil says.

Geddy blinks in surprise. "I was really prepared for you to say something cynical."

Neil laughs. "Not this time."

"Then I'll be the cynic," Nancy volunteers. She places a hand on Alex's shoulder. "If Danniels gets wind that you're gone, I'm willing to bet he's gonna come after you."

"But the Wreckers tried to kill Alex by burning down the clock tower," Geddy says. "I don't know how quickly the fire department responded, but maybe it'll look like he..." He can't finish that sentence, but Nancy can read between the lines.

"Let's hope so," she says.

Geddy lets Nancy take the shower first, then Charlene, because he's a gentleman at heart. Then he lets Neil go, because Neil promised he only takes about fifteen minutes. Geddy has the brilliant idea of showering with Alex to save time and water, but Neil has a problem with that solution. "If we get kicked out because you two can't keep it in your fuckin' pants, I swear—"

"Fine, Alex can go next," Geddy acquiesces.

When it's finally Geddy's turn, he discovers these people take their showering very seriously. The bathroom follows the cabin's beige and wood color scheme, with a wood vanity and a marble countertop. There are piles of brown and beige towels folded neatly on shelves. The shower stall lies behind a frosted glass door, and Geddy stands under the steaming hot spray for at least five minutes before even attempting to get clean.

When he's finally done, when he smells of soap and clean linens instead of smoke and sweat, the food is ready downstairs. The table displays a small feast of chicken pot pie, beef and vegetable stew, cornbread muffins, and potatoes au gratin. They dig in as though famished, and over dinner Geddy, Alex, and Neil tell Vic and his wife Sheila how they came to the Old Nation. It sounds insane when Geddy hears it out loud, but Vic and Sheila listen with rapt attention.

"So your dad made Crown City, huh?" Vic ponders when the story's over, looking at Alex. "What's that like?"

"Not all it's cracked up to be," Alex says, and Geddy feels the sadness like lead in his belly.

"Did you get stopped a lot for autographs?" Sheila wonders.

Alex's brow creases. "No? Why would I?"

"I thought people would be interested to meet the son of the city's founder."

"Crown City defines celebrity very differently than Canada does," Neil explains. "People there are more concerned with what you do rather than who you are. Their society values growth and scientific achievement."

"Yeah, nobody really paid me much attention," Alex says with a shrug. "Which was fine. It'd be weird to be fawned over just 'cause my dad was smart."

Alex seems to have thrown a wrench in the conversation, because he just called them right on out, and they've got nothing.

"You can't shut people down like that, Lerxst," Geddy says under his breath, patting Alex's knee underneath the table.

"Oh, um, but it's okay if you guys wanna ask me stuff," Alex adds. "It's the least I can do in exchange for your hospitality."

This opens up a floodgate of questions, which the others help Alex answer, because there's no reason for him to answer everything himself. He's been through enough today.

After the meal, Alex sneaks outside to the front porch for a moment alone and a chance to admire the scenery. The cold chills his damp hair but doesn't bother the rest of him. Snow covers the ground like a blanket that stretches out for miles. On the other side of the cabin is a sturdy-looking red pickup truck, presumably Vic's. Colorful birds chirp in the branches of the nearby trees. Alex looks up at the bright, blue sky, curious if he can see Crown City from here. He thinks he can see it, but maybe it's just his eyes playing tricks on him. Wishful thinking and all that.

Alex sits in a rocking chair and draws his knees to his chest. He amuses himself by breathing fog into the crisp air until the front door opens. He's expecting Geddy, but instead Charlene steps out and smiles at him. "Sheila baked an apple pie, if you want some," she says.

"I'll come back in a minute. I just needed some air."

"There's air inside. Air that smells delicious."

Alex chuckles to himself.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"Go ahead."

Charlene sits in the vacant chair and looks at him. "So, you and Geddy, huh?" The last horse crosses the finish line.

"You finally figured it out?"

"I don't think friends kiss the way you guys did. And you touch each other a lot. He reaches for your hand, you touch the small of his back, he pats your knee underneath the table..." She shrugs. "It's the little things. How'd you meet him?"

"He broke into my house. Isn't that how all the great romances start?"

Charlene giggles and toys with her hair, and Alex thinks she might have a thing for him. With Geddy, it had been easy; he'd tugged at his hair when he was nervous, laughed a little too hard at Alex's jokes, blushed profusely when Alex looked at him, and pretty much did everything but write 'I want your dick' on his forehead. He's only known Charlene for one day, but some of her gestures and tics make him wonder.

"Why did you come here?" Alex asks. "Geddy and Nancy wanted to escape the Wreckers, and Neil has family here, but what about you? How come you left Crown City?"

Charlene shrugs. She's wearing a sweater two sizes too big, which makes her look like a child wearing her mother's clothes. "I wanted to see the world."

"Can't argue with that."

"I saw the Old Nation from up there, and I always wondered what it was like, why we weren't allowed to go there. So I started working on the Air-Hooks."

"How did you know to make more than one?"

"Neil was interested in my work and raised the idea of an escape involving more than just myself. And I wanted to make more to test them and make sure I knew what I was doing." Charlene looks into his eyes like she's trying to figure him out. "I saw you take the particle. Any ideas what you're gonna do with it?"

"I dunno. I just... felt like I should take it, 'cause it was my dad's discovery. Maybe you should have it. You'd probably know what to do with it."

"I think you'll figure it out," she says, patting his arm before standing up. "Now, c'mon, let's get some of that apple pie before Geddy and Neil eat it all."

Vic buys some Silver Eagles off of Geddy, giving them some useable currency, and, in the morning, the five of them pile into Vic's truck so he can drive them to the nearest bus stop. Last night, Geddy and Neil reviewed a map of Canada. They're somewhere in the southern part of Ontario, which means they're not too far from Toronto. But Neil has elected himself as their Canadian ambassador, having lived in the country for eighteen years—and knowing enough conversational French to get them through any possible language barriers—so Geddy isn't too worried about getting lost.

The morning air is windy and cold, and Geddy watches the snowy hills pass by through the window. Neil is huge, so he's sitting up front. Alex, Charlene, and Nancy are crammed in alongside Geddy in the backseat. Alex stays mostly quiet, his head drooped on Geddy's shoulder, but the soft music flowing through the truck's speakers catches his attention. "Ooh, turn that up!"

It's nothing like the music from Crown City. It's loud and rebellious and rhythmic, and reminds Geddy of the rock and roll records he'd listened to in his youth.

"You a Zeppelin fan?" Vic asks.

"What?"

"He's never actually heard music before," Geddy jokes, earning himself a slap on the knee from Charlene.

"Shut up, Spageddy." Alex laughs. "Six years ago my father banned music and books and movies from the Old—er, Canada," he explains, like Vic thinks this might actually be his first time hearing music. "And I lived in Crown City pretty much my whole life, so I don't really know what you guys listen to."

"You've got a lot to catch up on," Vic says.

The bus system carries them into Toronto, but it's such a huge city none of them know where to start. Neil suggests they find a library and look up Alex's mother and stepfather in the phone book, which would list an address. Alex gets distracted by the colossal selection of books and has to be corralled by Geddy.

They discover that Alex's mother lives in Willowdale. It will take them about an hour to get there. Alex spends most of the bus ride nervously chewing his fingernails and watching the snow-dusted cityscape roll by. Geddy takes Alex's hands from his mouth and sets them in his lap. "It's gonna be fine," he assures Alex. "Everything will turn out for the best."

"But what if she doesn't like me? What if she doesn't like you?"

Geddy hadn't really considered that, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter much.

"What if she's had other kids by now and forgot about me?"

"She's your mother. She could never forget."

"She may have thought you were dead," Neil chimes in.

"Neil raises a decent, albeit depressing, point."

Alex hugs himself like he's cold. "This was a bad idea..."

"So what do you wanna do?" Neil asks. "You wanna turn around and go home—Oh, wait!"

Geddy punches Neil in the arm. "Leave him alone."

Alex leans his head against the window and breathes hot against the cold glass. He doodles a smiley face in the fog that appears there, and Geddy feels a warmth in his chest.

"I know you're scared," Geddy says, taking Alex's hand in his own. "It's okay to be nervous. But you have what I've wanted for the last six years: a second chance. I never got to tell my parents how much I loved them. I don't even remember what the last words I said to them were, but I was sixteen so I'm sure it wasn't anything good. If I had what you have right now..." He stops talking when the words catch in his throat.

"In the back of my mind, there's this voice," Alex says softly. "And it tells me my dad killed himself 'cause he couldn't stand being around me. Because I was a disappointment. And I know—at least I think I know—that's not true, 'cause he was sick. He couldn't think rationally. But that voice is still there, y'know, telling me there's something wrong with me that makes everyone leave. So if my mom doesn't want me—"

"That's not gonna happen," Neil says, shaking his head. "How people treat you is usually a reflection of themselves. Most of the time, it's got nothing to do with you, unless you're a huge asshole."

"And you're not an asshole," Charlene says from the seat behind them. "You're sweet, and any mother would be lucky to have you."

"Is it okay if we get off at the next stop?" Nancy says after a moment. "I wanna find a place to stay while you guys do your thing. This is sorta personal for you, and I don't wanna be in the way."

"You're not in the way," Alex says. "But if you really want to, sure, we can stop."

Geddy's the only one of them with actual Canadian currency, so he pays for a motel room that Nancy ends up sharing with Charlene. "I feel bad leaving you guys here," he says. "You sure you're gonna be okay?"

Nancy gives him a look that would make a lesser man wither.

"Okay, dumb question. Let me rephrase: you're in a whole new country with no money and no idea where things are."

"I made the Air-Hooks, so I can probably figure out a map," Charlene says. "Besides, the currency exchange rate for Silver Eagles is gonna be ridiculous, and I want in on that."

"You sure you don't wanna take Neil with you?"

Neil scoffs. "You two idiots need me," he says, gently cuffing Geddy around the back of the head. "They'll be fine."

Charlene scribbles something on the notepad on the night table and hands the page to Alex. "Here, call us when you guys get to your mom's place, then we can call you later from wherever we are."

Alex pockets the number. "Sounds like a plan."

The remaining trio take the next bus into Willowdale and walk a few blocks to the house. It's a comfortable-looking two-story structure located in a small, idyllic suburb. Alex climbs the walkway and stares up at the house like it holds the secrets to life. Geddy lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Go on. It's gonna be okay. She'll love you."

"How do you know?"

"Because she's your mother. And also because I love you, too."

Alex smiles sweetly, and Neil has to shatter the moment by saying, "Alex, stop being a moron and just ring the damn doorbell."

They approach the door, and Alex presses the bell. He's shaking, though not from the cold, and Geddy rubs his back. The front door is opened by a blonde girl who looks about twelve years old. Alex is momentarily thrown off by the sight of her, but he smiles and says, "Hi, what's your name?"

"Kyla," she says around a mouthful of bubble gum.

"Kyla, I'm Alex. I'm here to see your mom. Is she home?"

Kyla turns away and yells, "Mom!" down the hall.

Milka appears in the foyer, and Alex noticeably stiffens at the sight of his long lost mother. She looks slightly older than the pictures, but there's no doubt that it's the same woman. "Kyla, how many times have I told you not to—" She freezes when she looks in the doorway and sees Alex there, the prodigal son returning home. "Alex?" Her voice is a whisper, but the house has gone eerily quiet, as though a switch has been flipped.

"Mom? It's me," Alex says, and the quiver in his voice makes Geddy cringe inwardly in empathy. "I don't—I don't know how to prove it, but I'm real and I'm here, and I just want—" He's interrupted by his mother embracing him in a tight, crushing hug, as though she fears he'll disappear again if she lets him go. She's sobbing into his shoulder, and Geddy thinks maybe he's crying, too.

After a few seconds, Milka looks at Geddy and Neil and says, "You brought him home to me?"

"Y—yeah, totally," Geddy says, because there's no way he's getting separated from Alex at this juncture.

"Please, please come in!" She invites them inside, and Geddy just sort of stands in the foyer.

"Why is he calling you Mom?" Kyla asks. "Do I have a brother?"

Milka nods and pushes her fingers through her daughter's hair. "Before I married your father and had you, I had a son. His father took him away, and I thought I would never see him again."

Kyla makes a face, absorbing this new information. "Do I have to share my room?"

"No, baby, no. He can stay in the guest room." A steady stream of tears has smudged her make-up, but she makes no effort to fix it or wipe it away. She takes Alex's face in her hands and just looks at him. "I can't believe it. My baby... How did you find me? What happened to your father?"

"He died last year."

The tears flow anew. What a day this woman must be having: she discovers her first-born son is alive and at her doorstep after a twenty-year absence, and learns her first husband is dead. "Was he good to you?"

"The jury's still out on that one."

Milka takes a deep breath, her lower lip quivering. She pulls Alex into another hug. "I am so, so sorry, Alex."

"It's okay." Alex holds her, and it's not clear who's comforting who here. "Mom, it's okay. It's not your fault."

"I should have done more," she sobs. "I shouldn't have let him take you—"

"Mom, it's okay," Alex says again, taking hold of her shoulders so he can look at her. "I'm alive. I'm here now. I made it home."

Geddy thinks Alex is crying, too, but he can't tell through the blurry mess his eyes have become.

"I heard you got remarried," Alex says once they're all seated in the living room. Geddy's sitting on the floor at Alex's feet, letting Kyla braid his hair, and Neil's sitting in the recliner and sipping a ginger ale. "Is he home?"

Mom shakes her head. "He's at the hospital."

Alex gasps. "Oh my God, what happened?"

"No, love, that's where he works. He's a doctor."

"Oh, right."

She smiles at his naivete and wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes. "How did you three get here?"

"It's a really long story," Alex says.

"I have all the time in the world."

So Alex tells her every bit of it, and his heart breaks anew at the tears she sheds for him. "Oh, Alex, honey," she sobs, "I am so sorry I put you through this."

"It's not your fault," Alex says, taking her hands in his own. "You couldn't have known..."

She shakes her head. "I knew your father wasn't well. This obsession he had with a flying city... I thought it was just a passing fancy. I had no idea he would actually create it and get people to help him build it."

"How come you didn't go with him?" Alex asks, and he has to be gentle here, because he doesn't want this to sound like an accusation, like he holds her absence against her.

Mom stares at the way her hands are clasped with his for a long while. "He asked me to, but I was going to school to be a nurse. Crown City was just being built, and it would not have higher education for a while. I wanted to be of use when I got there. The country we came from, your father and I..." She shakes her head. "It was unheard of for women to go to university. There were not a lot of opportunities. So I told your father I would join him in Crown City when I graduated, and I could work in the hospital there."

It makes sense. Horrible sense. Dad probably interpreted that as Mom not wanting her child, choosing something—anything—over her own offspring.

Mom sighs and squeezes his hand. "If I had known that I was making a choice between you and a career... I would have made the right choice. But I did graduate, and I went to Crown City to meet you and your father. But they turned me away. They said I wasn't allowed inside." Her voice quivers with raw emotion. "That your father had..."

"He kept you out," Alex says. So Danniels had been right. "I thought it was 'cause you cheated on him with this other guy."

Mom shakes her head again. "No, nothing like that. I assumed he had found someone else, that he no longer loved me. But he kept me away from you. And I couldn't... I couldn't risk your safety." She takes Alex's face in her hands, and Alex feels his chest crumble. "I knew he would never hurt you, but if I took you away, he would never stop searching for you."

"Because of the bloodline," Alex murmurs to himself. It's starting to hit him now, like heavy raindrops.

"What?"

"Danniels told me my dad needed his own bloodline inside Crown City."

Mom nods grimly. "He spoke of grandeur when Crown City was being built. He said you would succeed him and make the city a living paradise. If I took you away, as much as I wanted to see you again, I knew what he would do. It destroyed me to give you up, Alex. But I knew he would keep you safe and give you love. He was your father, after all."

Alex can't bring himself to tell her the extent of his father's sickness. It would only make her hate herself more for leaving him, and she's suffered enough.

"I always knew you would be safe," Mom says, using her thumb to brush away the fresh tears spilling down his cheek. "Every night when I put you to bed, I would tell you 'angels are watching over you.' Do you remember?"

The angels. Oh God.

That's what breaks Alex, and Mom wraps her arms around him and lets him collapse into her. In his mother's embrace, Alex feels his wounds closing up as though something divine has touched him. And maybe it has.

A little while later, Alex commandeers the kitchen while Mom levies a pretty steady stream of questions upon Neil and Geddy. Just as dinner's being set on the table, Howard, Mom's husband, comes through the door, and Mom bursts into a new fit of joyful tears telling him her son has finally come home, and Howard hugs him as though Alex is his own flesh and blood.

The six of them sit at the table, and for the first time, Alex feels like he's part of a family.

His mother is alive. He still can't believe it. He's spent twenty years conditioned to the reality of being motherless, of never questioning it or knowing what he'd missed, but the last few days have tossed him about like a boat in a storm. Alex has a family now. He has a half-sister who he will tease and let braid his hair and talk about boys with, or whatever pre-teen girls do. He has a stepfather who will teach him how to drive and how to play hockey and pass down his record collection, and teach him all the things his own father forgot to impart. And he has a mother who will make up for a twenty-year absence by giving him all the love in the world.

Alex can't help but feel bad for Geddy, though, and he wonders if this happy reunion is magnifying Geddy's own losses.

"So, you're a chef, Alex?" Howard asks after raving over the meal Alex has prepared for them.

"Oh, um, not exactly. I just... like making food."

"What did you do in Crown City?"

"I was an artist."

"And what are you now?"

Alex doesn't know.

Mom puts a hand on her husband's arm. "He's been through enough."

"No, it's okay," Alex says, because he doesn't like to be pitied or coddled. "I guess I could still be an artist. I lost all my paintings and sculptures in the fire, but I guess I could make more."

Howard's eyebrows shoot up. "Fire?"

"My house burned down," Alex says with a practiced edge of nonchalance. "It's a long story."

"He'll tell you about it later," Mom says.

"Mom, how'd you and Howard meet?"

Mom is more than happy to elucidate. "We were working at the same hospital. He had just lost his wife, and I had lost you, so it was a very tough time for both of us. We shared a few friendly conversations, then one day he asked me to have dinner with him. I asked him why me, because there was no shortage of pretty female nurses there. He said, 'because you have sad eyes,' and I understood."

Alex can't stop himself from briefly looking at Geddy, hearing their story reflected back in the mirror of his mother and stepfather's love. Alex recognized the loneliness and pain in Geddy's eyes from the moment they met. He could see that small, almost invisible edge in his expression that only another lonely person can see. Had Geddy seen the same in him?

Howard pats Mom's hand, and Alex is filled with an unexplainable fondness for him.

"What about you two?" Mom asks, giving Alex and Geddy a pointed look.

"What?"

"A mother knows. I may not have seen you for twenty years, but you're still my son."

Geddy stammers for words, and Neil snorts into his tea.

"He broke into my house," Alex says with a curl of a smile.

"What? No! Don't say it like that," Geddy pleads. His hands move to fuss with the hair that's usually hanging over his shoulders, but since Kyla braided it he's left grasping at air. He looks at Mom like he's waiting to be slapped. "It's not as bad as it sounds. I mean, I did break in, but I didn't think anybody lived there. I was just trying to hide."

Neil mimes using a shovel, as if to say 'stop digging yourself deeper.' Geddy sinks in his chair and frets incessantly, while Alex just laughs at him.

Mom shakes her head with a smile. "What would your mother say?"

There's a tremor of pain in Geddy's expression that Alex notices because he's obsessively concerned with Geddy's face. "Well, if she were alive, she probably wouldn't like me very much."

Mom gasps, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. "Oh, dear, I'm so sorry. Geddy, you brought my boy home. I think your mother would be very proud of you. You're just as much a part of this family as Alex is, if you want to be. You too, Neil."

Geddy nods, blinking away the tears that have formed in his eyes. Alex clutches Geddy's hand underneath the table. "Thank you," Geddy says through the choke in his voice.

"Happy to be included, ma'am," Neil says.

After dinner, Alex takes Howard aside and says, "Can I talk to you?"

"Sure."

"Um, in private."

Howard brings Alex into his study on the second floor. The office is small and messy, with stacks of paper on every available surface. "Is something wrong?"

Alex takes a breath. "I think so." He paces the floor, because it helps him think and exert some of his nervous energy. "You can't tell my mom, okay? 'Cause it would destroy her. But my dad got really, really sick, y'know, in the head, during the last few years of his life. And I'm terrified that I'm gonna be like him. I feel... wrong, and I don't know if it's just how I dealt with my dad's death or if whatever made him the way he was is genetic." He feels the world shaking, and it's only when Howard offers him a handkerchief does he realize he's crying. "I'm scared, but I have to know."

Howard nods, rubbing Alex's back as he wipes his eyes. "Well, Alex, I'm not that kind of doctor. But I have colleagues who are, and I'd be happy to arrange an appointment with one of them if you'd like."

"There's hope, right? I mean, if I have whatever it is..."

"I imagine there are medications and therapy. We don't even know what affliction your father had. But there's always hope. Maybe the reason your father got as bad as he did is because he didn't treat it."

Alex tries to take some small measure of comfort in that. If he has whatever demon laid claim to Dad's mind, Alex hopes he can fight it somehow, that he will remain mostly himself most of the time. He thinks that would be an acceptable compromise.

"You're part of our family," Howard says. "Whatever you need, I'll make sure you get it."

"What about Geddy?"

"What about him?"

"Well, we're kind of a package deal. And if he ends up needing pills to deal with me on my bad days, you can't leave him high and dry."

"Of course. What you and your friends did to come here is extraordinary. I've never seen your mother so happy. She'd probably kill me if I didn't extend my gratitude toward Geddy." Howard chuckles.

Later that evening, while Geddy's rinsing off in the shower, Alex finds his mother and Neil talking on the couch. Neil sees Alex's approach and makes himself scarce, not wanting to hover or intrude on their time together. Alex smiles in appreciation and sits in the warm spot beside her. "I think you should have this," he says, opening his knapsack and taking out the photo album. Mom's eyes water anew as she cracks open the leather and sees the pictures there.

"Did you bring this for me?"

"I was hoping to. I wasn't sure if you'd wanna see me, y'know..."

Mom wraps her arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. "Oh, my sweet boy. I never stopped loving you."

Alex sniffles before digging something else out of his bag. "I also brought you this." It's the miniature clockwork angel he made years ago in school, the one stored away in his dad's wooden chest. "I used to make these in Crown City. They were much bigger, of course, but since you always believed angels were watching over me, maybe you should have it."

Mom studies the figure as though appraising it. "It's beautiful, Alex. I'm so proud of you." Alex smiles, and he doesn't realize he's crying until Mom reaches out and catches a tear with her thumb. "You and your friends are welcome to stay as long as you like. We have plenty of room here. If you need anything at all, you tell me, okay? I wasn't able to be there for you the last twenty years, but I'm going to do my best to make up for that now."

Mom makes him a cup of her butterscotch cider, and Alex goes outside on the deck to enjoy it. He's wrapped in a thick blanket to combat the cold temperature, his knees pulled up to his chest as he sits in one of the plush deck chairs, and he watches the gentle flurry of snow falling into the backyard. The snow sticks to the tree branches like wisps of cotton candy and covers the ground like a blanket. The moon hangs high in the starry night sky, and Alex wonders if one of those stars is Crown City. He imagines Dad's ghost hovering somewhere around him and shivers.

"You're not mad, are you?" he murmurs, warming his fingers around the mug of cider. "Maybe I could've helped and made Crown City better, but... I wanted to come here and meet my mom and start a new life with Geddy. It's nothing personal, really, but you shouldn't have lied to me. Maybe things would've been different."

His only reply is the crystalline whisper of the snowfall.

A little while later, the glass door slides open and Geddy steps out to join him. His hair is damp, and he's got a blanket thrown over his pajamas. "It's just snow, Lerxst," Geddy says with a smile, but he climbs into the chair beside Alex and pulls the blanket tighter around himself. "You'll get sick of seeing it eventually."

Alex smiles back and offers Geddy the cider mug. "My mom'll make you some if you want."

Geddy takes a sip, his eyes widening. "There's booze in this."

"Yeah, bourbon."

"Wow. Go Alex's mom." Geddy takes another greedy drink before handing back the mug. "I called the girls, so they have this number if they need to get in touch with us."

"That's good." They sit there together in a comfortable silence and watch the snow. Alex casts quick glances at Geddy, trying to read his expression. "I can't believe we're really gonna do this."

"Do what?"

"Live here."

"Well, I've already lived here for ten years, and Neil's done eighteen. Combined that's, like, twenty-eight years of experience. Longer than either of us have even been alive. I think you'll get the hang of it."

Alex stares into his mug as though an answer might lie inside. "You're still with me?"

"Of course. I love you," Geddy says, like there was never any other answer. Alex can't stop himself from wincing ever so slightly at that, and Geddy picks up on it. "What's with that face?"

"You might love me now, but I'm fucked up, Spageddy. And I'm just gonna get worse, and you won't be able to handle it."

"Most people worth knowing are fucked up in some way. Y'know, like me."

Alex smiles despite himself. "I saw what it did to him..."

"Crown City didn't have all the resources this place has. Your dad didn't take medication or do any sort of therapy, so that probably made his condition a lot worse. But you're gonna have so much support and options available to you. You're gonna be fine. You do have a tendency to overthink things just a bit."

Alex stares at him for a long while. "You're the best person I know."

Geddy chuckles. "Oh, Lerxst..."

They sit there together for a while, sharing the snowfall and the cider. Eventually, they head to the guest room for a good night's sleep. Neil has opted to sleep on the couch downstairs, so Geddy and Alex have the spacious room—and bed—to themselves. The linens smell like lavender and freesia, and Geddy is warm and soft and fits perfectly against Alex.

Geddy murmurs goodnight and dozes off, the soft sounds of his breathing filling Alex's ears. Since his father's death, Alex has had trouble falling asleep, especially without the aid of alcohol. His brain doesn't want to shut off, conjuring horrifying memories and potential futures. Most nights, he lies awake for a good hour or so, trapped in the vicious hell of his darkest thoughts, before exhaustion sweeps him away and consciousness bleeds out of him.

The house is quiet, but he can hear the soft hum of the central heating, the distant roar of the occasional airplane overhead, and Geddy's slow, even breaths.

As Alex lies fully awake in the dark, that's when he hears the whispers.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will there be a sequel? All I can say is "maybe." I would prefer to work on a new story instead of retreading one I've already written, but I wouldn't be opposed to a collaboration on a sequel, since I already have somewhat of a plot. *hinthintwinkwink*


End file.
